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Harold Macmillan

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The Rt Hon. Harold Macmillan
Harold Macmillan

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In office
11 January 1957 – 19 October 1963
Deputy Rab Butler
Preceded by Sir Anthony Eden
Succeeded by Sir Alec Douglas-Home
In office
20 December 1955 – 13 January 1957
Preceded by Rab Butler
Succeeded by Peter Thorneycroft
Born 10 February 1894
Brixton, London
Died 29 December 1986
Chelwood Gate, Sussex
Political party Conservative


Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986), was a British Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963.

Nicknamed 'Supermac', he did not use his first name and was known as Harold Macmillan before elevation to the peerage.

When asked what represented the greatest challenge for a statesman, Macmillan replied: “Events, my dear boy, events”. <ref>http://www.policyreview.org/oct05/bering.html</ref>


Contents

[edit] Early life

Harold Macmillan was born in Brixton to Maurice Crawford Macmillan (1853-1936) and Helen Artie Tarleton Belles (1856-1937). His paternal grandfather, Daniel Macmillan (1813-1857), was a Scottish crofter who founded Macmillan Publishers. Harold was educated at Eton and at Balliol College, Oxford, although he only completed two years of his classics degree before the outbreak of the First World War. He served with distinction as a captain in the Grenadier Guards during the war and was wounded on three occasions. During the Battle of the Somme, he spent an entire day wounded and lying a foxhole with a bullet in his pelvis, reading the Greek writer Aeschylus in the original language.<ref>Lawton, John (1992). 1963: Five Hundred Days. Sevenoaks: Hodder and Stoughton. ISBN 0340508469.</ref>

Macmillan lost so many of his fellow students during the war that afterwards he refused to return to Oxford, saying the university would never be the same. He was a director of the Great Western Railway before the nationalisation of the railways.

[edit] Marriage

He married Lady Dorothy Cavendish, daughter of Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire in 1920. Lady Dorothy is said to have had a long affair with the Conservative politician Robert Boothby, who was widely rumoured to have been the father of Macmillan's youngest daughter Sarah; Lady Dorothy died in 1966, aged 65.

They had four children:

[edit] Political career (1924-1957)

Elected to the House of Commons in 1924 for Stockton-on-Tees, he lost his seat in 1929, only to return in 1931. Macmillan spent the 1930s on the backbenches, with his anti-appeasement ideals and sharp criticism of Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain serving to isolate him.

In the Second World War he at last attained office, serving in the wartime coalition government in the Ministry of Supply and the Colonial Ministry before attaining real power upon being sent to North Africa in 1942 as British government representative to the Allies in the Mediterranean. During this assignment Macmillan worked closely with Dwight Eisenhower, a friendship that would prove crucial in his later career.

He returned to England after the war and was Secretary of State for Air for two months in 1945. He lost his seat in the landslide Labour victory that year, but soon returned to parliament in a November 1945 by-election in Bromley.

With the Conservative victory in 1951 he became Minister of Housing under Winston Churchill and fulfilled his conference promise to build 300,000 houses per year. He then served as Minister of Defence from October 1954. By this time he had lost the wire-rimmed glasses, toothy grin and brylcreemed hair of wartime photographs, and instead grew his hair thick and glossy, had his teeth capped and walked with the ramrod bearing of a former Guards officer, acquiring the distinguished appearance of his later career.

He then served as Foreign Secretary in April-December 1955 and Chancellor of the Exchequer 1955-1957 under Anthony Eden. In the latter job he insisted that Eden's de facto deputy Rab Butler not be treated as senior to him, and threatened resignation until he was allowed to cut bread and milk subsidies. During the Suez Crisis he was "First In, First Out" (in the description of opposition Labour Shadow Chancellor Harold Wilson): first gung-ho for invasion, then a prime mover in Britain's withdrawal in the wake of the financial crisis.

Harold Macmillan became Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party after Eden's resignation in January 1957, surprising observers with his appointment over the favourite, Rab Butler.

[edit] Prime Minister (1957-1963)

[edit] Independent nuclear deterrent

Following the technical failures of a British independent nuclear deterrent with the Blue Streak and the Blue Steel projects, and the unilateral cancellation of the Skybolt missile system by US Defence Secretary Robert McNamara, Macmillan negotiated the delivering of American Polaris missiles to the UK under the Nassau agreement in December 1962. Previously he had agreed to base 60 Thor missiles in Britain under joint control, and since late 1957 the American McMahon Act had been eased to allow Britain more access to nuclear technology. These negotiations were the basis for Peter Cook's satire of Macmillan in Beyond the Fringe.

Macmillan was a force in the successful negotiations leading to the signing of the 1962 Partial Test Ban Treaty by Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union. His previous attempt to create an agreement at the May 1960 summit in Paris had collapsed due to the Gary Powers affair.

[edit] EEC

Britain's application to join the EEC was vetoed by Charles de Gaulle (29 January 1963), in part due to de Gaulle's fear that "the end would be a colossal Atlantic Community dependent on America" and in part in anger at the Anglo-American nuclear deal.

[edit] Economy

Macmillan brought the monetary concerns of the Exchequer into office; the economy was his prime concern. However, Britain's balance of payments problems led to the imposition of a wage freeze in 1961 and this caused the government to lose popularity and led to a series of by-election defeats. He organised a major cabinet change in July 1962, but continued to lose support from within his party. The cabinet changes were widely seen as a sign of panic, and the young Liberal MP Jeremy Thorpe said of Macmillan's dismissal of so many of his colleagues, "greater love hath no man than this, than to lay down his friends for his life".

His One Nation approach to the economy was to seek high employment. This contrasted with his mainly monetarist Treasury ministers who argued that the support of sterling required strict controls on money and hence an unavoidable rise in unemployment. Their advice was rejected and in January 1958 the three Treasury ministers Peter Thorneycroft, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Birch, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, and Enoch Powell, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, resigned. Macmillan brushed aside this incident as "a little local difficulty".

Macmillan supported the creation of the National Incomes Commission as a means to institute controls on income as part of his growth-without-inflation policy. A further series of subtle indicators and controls were also introduced during his premiership.

[edit] Foreign policy

Macmillan also took close control of foreign policy. He worked to narrow the post-Suez rift with the United States, where his wartime friendship with Dwight D. Eisenhower was key; the two had a productive conference in Bermuda as early as March 1957. The cordial relationship remained after the election of John F. Kennedy. Macmillan also saw the value of rapprochement with Europe and sought belated entry to the European Economic Community (EEC), and explored the possibility of a European Free Trade Area (EFTA).

Image:Cm0136 John F Kennedy 1962 touring Key West NAS.jpg

Macmillan's term saw the first phase of the African independence movement, beginning with the granting of independence to the Gold Coast, as Ghana, in 1957. His celebrated "wind of change" speech (February 1960) is considered a landmark in this process. Ghana and Malaya were granted independence in 1957, Nigeria in 1960 and Kenya in 1963. However in the Middle East Macmillan ensured Britain remained a force, intervening over Iraq in 1958 and 1960 and becoming involved in the affairs of Oman.

[edit] Election victory (1959)

He led the Conservatives to victory in the October 1959 general election, increasing his party's majority from 67 to 107 seats. The successful campaign was based on the economic improvements achieved, the slogan "Life's Better Under the Conservatives" was matched by Macmillan's own remark, "indeed let us be frank about it - most of our people have never had it so good." <ref>http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/20/newsid_3728000/3728225.stm Harold MacMillan, Speech in Bedford, 20 July 1957</ref>, usually paraphrased as "You've never had it so good".

Critics contended that the actual economic growth rate was weak and distorted by increased defence spending.[citation needed]

[edit] Parliament trivia

The Supermac label was applied by cartoonist Victor 'Vicky' Weisz. It was intended as mockery, but backfired, coming to be used in a neutral or friendly fashion. Weisz tried to label him with other names, including 'Mac the Knife' (at the time of major cabinet changes in 1962; see below), but none of these caught on. (See also Mack the Knife).


Macmillan had a reputation for being unflappable and witty in public, though he did admit to his wife that he was terrified before each Prime Minister's Question Time (usually on a Tuesday) in the Commons. On September 29, 1960, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev twice interrupted a speech by Macmillan at the United Nations by shouting out and pounding his desk. Macmillan famously replied, "I should like that to be translated if he wants to say anything." Responding to a remark made by Harold Wilson about not having boots in which to go to school, Macmillan, to the delight of Conservative MPs, retorted, "If Mr Wilson did not have boots to go to school, it is because he was too big for them!"

[edit] Retirement and death (1963-1986)

Arms of Harold Macmillan

The Profumo affair of spring and summer 1963 permanently damaged the credibility of Macmillan's government. He survived a Parliamentary vote with a majority of 69, one less than had been thought necessary for his survival, and was afterwards joined in the smoking-room only by his son and son-in-law, not by any Cabinet minister. Nonetheless, Butler and Maudling (who was very popular with backbench MPs at that time) declined to push for his resignation, especially after a tide of support from Conservative activists around the country.

However, the affair may have exacerbated Macmillan's ill-health. He was taken ill on the eve of the Conservative Party Conference, diagnosed incorrectly with inoperable prostate cancer. Consequently, he resigned on 18 October 1963. He was succeeded by the Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home in a controversial move; it was alleged that Macmillan had pulled strings and utilised the party's grandees, nicknamed "The Magic Circle", to ensure that Butler was not chosen as his successor.

Macmillan initially refused a peerage and retired from politics in September 1964. He did, however, accept the distinction of the Order of Merit from The Queen. After retiring, he took up the chairmanship of his family's publishing house, Macmillan Publishers. He then brought out a six-volume autobiography; the read was described by his political enemy Enoch Powell as inducing "a sensation akin to that of chewing on cardboard". His wartime diaries, published after his death, were much better-received.

Over the next 20 years he made the occasional political intervention, particularly after Margaret Thatcher became Tory leader and Macmillan's premiership came under attack from the monetarists in the party. Macmillan is commonly thought to have likened Thatcher's policy of privatisation to "selling the family silver". In fact what he did say (at a dinner of the Tory Reform Group at the Carlton Club on November 8 1985) was that the sale of assets was commonplace amongst individuals or states when they encountered financial difficulties: "First of all the Georgian silver goes. And then all that nice furniture that used to be in the saloon. Then the Canalettos go." Profitable parts of the steel industry and the railways had been privatised, along with British Telecom: "They were like two Rembrandts still left."<ref> Alan Watkins, A Conservative Coup (Duckworth, 1992), p. 105.</ref> Macmillan's speech was much commented on and a few days later Macmillan made a speech in the Lords to clarify what he had meant:

When I ventured the other day to criticise the system I was, I am afraid, misunderstood. As a Conservative, I am naturally in favour of returning into private ownership and private management all those means of production and distribution which are now controlled by state capitalism. I am sure they will be more efficient. What I ventured to question was the using of these huge sums as if they were income.<ref>468 H.L. Deb., cc.390-1, 14 November 1985. Quoted in Watkins, p. 106.</ref>

In 1984 he finally accepted a peerage and was created Earl of Stockton and Viscount Macmillan of Ovenden. In the last month of his life, he observed:

"Sixty-three years ago ... the unemployment figure [in Stockton-on-Tees] was then 29%. Last November [1986] ... the unemployment [there] is 28%. A rather sad end to one's life."

In the House of Lords he praised the miners then on strike, asserting that they had "beaten the Kaiser's Army" and "beaten Hitler's Army". Historian Andrew Roberts checked each of the three occasions on which Macmillan was wounded in the First World War; on each of these the miners had also been on strike.

Macmillan died at Birch Grove in Sussex in 1986 aged 92 years and 322 days — the greatest age attained by a British Prime Minister until surpassed by James Callaghan on February 14, 2005.

Image:Macmillangraves.jpg

[edit] Titles from birth to death

[edit] Notes

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[edit] External links

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[edit] Cabinets

For a full list of Ministerial office-holders, see Conservative Government 1957-1964.

[edit] January 1957 - October 1959

Change

  • March 1957 - Lord Home succeeds Lord Salisbury as Lord President, remaining also Commonwealth Relations Secretary.
  • September 1957 - Lord Hailsham succeeds Lord Home as Lord President, Home remaining Commonwealth Relations Secretary. Geoffrey Lloyd succeeds Hailsham as Minister of Education. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Reginald Maudling, enters the Cabinet.
  • January 1958 - Derick Heathcoat Amory succeeds Peter Thorneycroft as Chancellor of the Exchequer. John Hare succeeds Amory as Minister of Agriculture.

[edit] October 1959 - July 1960

[edit] July 1960 - October 1961

[edit] October 1961 - July 1962

[edit] July 1962 - October 1963

In a radical reshuffle dubbed "The Night of the Long Knives", Macmillan sacked a third of his Cabinet and instituted many other changes.

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by:
Robert Strother Stewart 		Member of Parliament for Stockton-on-Tees
1924–1929 		Succeeded by:
Frederick Fox Riley
Preceded by:
Frederick Fox Riley 		Member of Parliament for Stockton-on-Tees
1931–1945 		Succeeded by:
George Chetwynd
Preceded by:
Sir Edward Campbell 		Member of Parliament for Bromley
1945–1964 		Succeeded by:
John Hunt
Political offices
Preceded by:
Sir Archibald Sinclair 		Secretary of State for Air
1945 		Succeeded by:
The Viscount Stansgate
Preceded by:
The Earl Alexander of Tunis 		Minister of Defence
1954–1955 		Succeeded by:
Selwyn Lloyd
Preceded by:
Sir Anthony Eden 		Foreign Secretary
1955 		Succeeded by:
Selwyn Lloyd
Preceded by:
Rab Butler 		Chancellor of the Exchequer
1955–1957 		Succeeded by:
Peter Thorneycroft
Preceded by:
Sir Anthony Eden 		Leader of the British Conservative Party
1957–1963 		Succeeded by:
The Earl of Home
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
1957–1963
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by:
New Creation 		Earl of Stockton
1984–1986 		Succeeded by:
Alexander Macmillan
Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom

<td style="vertical-align: middle; width: 1px" rowspan="2"> Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg </td>

Walpole, Wilmington, Pelham, Newcastle, Devonshire, Newcastle, Bute, G Grenville, Rockingham, Chatham (Pitt the Elder), Grafton, North, Rockingham, Shelburne, Portland, Pitt the Younger, Addington, Pitt the Younger, W Grenville, Portland, Perceval, Liverpool, Canning, Goderich, Wellington, Grey, Melbourne, Peel, Melbourne, Peel, Russell, Derby, Aberdeen, Palmerston, Derby, Palmerston, Russell, Derby, Disraeli, Gladstone, Disraeli, Gladstone, Salisbury, Gladstone, Salisbury, Gladstone, Rosebery, Salisbury, Balfour, Campbell-Bannerman, Asquith, Lloyd George, Bonar Law, Baldwin, MacDonald, Baldwin, MacDonald, Baldwin, Chamberlain, Churchill, Attlee, Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Douglas-Home, Wilson, Heath, Wilson, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair


Chancellors of the Exchequer

<td style="vertical-align: middle; width: 1px" rowspan="2"> Image:UK Royal Coat of Arms B&W.jpg </td>

Baker, Mildmay, Fortescue, Home, Caesar, Greville, Portland, Newburgh, Cottington, Colepeper, Clarendon, Shaftesbury, Duncombe, Ernle, Booth, Hampden, Montagu, Smith, Boyle, Smith, Harley, Benson, Wyndham, Onslow, Walpole, Stanhope, Aislabie, Pratt, Walpole, Sandys, Pelham, Lee, Bilson Legge, Lyttelton, Bilson Legge, Mansfield, Bilson Legge, Barrington, Dashwood, Grenville, Dowdeswell, Townshend, North, Cavendish, Pitt, Cavendish, Pitt, Addington, Pitt, Petty, Perceval, Vansittart, Robinson, Canning, Abbott, Herries, Goulburn, Althorp, Denman, Peel, Monteagle, Baring, Goulburn, C Wood, Disraeli, Gladstone, Lewis, Disraeli, Gladstone, Disraeli, Hunt, Lowe, Gladstone, Northcote, Gladstone, Childers, Hicks Beach, Harcourt, R Churchill, Goschen, Harcourt, Hicks Beach, Ritchie, A Chamberlain, Asquith, Lloyd George, McKenna, Bonar Law, A Chamberlain, Horne, Baldwin, N Chamberlain, Snowden, W Churchill, Snowden, N Chamberlain, Simon, K Wood, Anderson, Dalton, Cripps, Gaitskell, Butler, Macmillan, Thorneycroft, Heathcoat-Amory, Lloyd, Maudling, Callaghan, Jenkins, Macleod, Barber, Healey, Howe, Lawson, Major, Lamont, Clarke, Brown
Leaders of the Conservative Party
The Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, The Earl of Derby, Benjamin Disraeli, The Marquess of Salisbury, Arthur Balfour, Andrew Bonar Law, Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Howard, David Cameron
de:Harold Macmillan

es:Harold Macmillan fr:Harold Macmillan it:Harold Macmillan ja:ハロルド・マクミラン no:Harold Macmillan pl:Harold Macmillan ru:Макмиллан, Гарольд fi:Harold Macmillan sv:Harold Macmillan zh:麥美倫

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