Harold Macmillan
Born in Brixton, LondonBorn on 10th of February 1894
Died on 29th of December 1986
Quotes from Harold Macmillan
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“Events, dear boy, events.” Harold Macmillan’s famous comment on why things go astray in politics was never truer than for the man himself who fell from “Supermac” to scandal victim through the Profumo affair.
Maurice Harold Macmillan was born in Chelsea on February 10, 1894. He attended Eton and Balliol College, Oxford serving in WWI during which he was badly wounded three times. In 1924 he became MP for Stockton-on-Tees and witnessed the worst of the depression during the nine years held his seat there. This experience was to influence his outlook as a Tory. During the 1930s Macmillan spoke out against appeasement and during Churchill’s premiership was appointed to help increase armaments production. From 1942-45 he was Churchill’s political representative in North Africa.
A successful housing minister in the 1951 Conservative government Macmillan held high office throughout the 50s as Minister of Defence, Foreign Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer and finally Prime Minister with Eden’s resignation in 1957. During the next six years Macmillan presided over a period of rising affluence and could claim without irony that: “most people…have never had it so good” Macmillan also coined the expression “wind of change” during his decolonization speech in Cape Town.
In spite of his successes Macmillan also presided over unresolved issues regarding the economy and Britain’s position as a world power. In his personal life he was cuckolded for many years by Robert Boothby. With the revelations of the Profumo affair and his own ill-health Macmillan, perceived as having lost control of those dreaded ‘events,’ was more or less forced to retire in 1963. He became a respected elder statesman and the first Earl of Stockton. Aged 92 Harold Macmillan died at his home in Sussex on December 29, 1986.
Links:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRmacmillan.htm Biography
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