Harold Macmillan
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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In office 10 January 1957 – 18 October 1963 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Monarch | Elizabeth II | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
First Secretary | Rab Butler (1962–63) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Anthony Eden | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Alec Douglas-Home | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Leader of the Conservative Party | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In office 10 January 1957 – 18 October 1963 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | Anthony Eden | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Alec Douglas-Home | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Maurice Harold Macmillan 10 February 1894 London, England | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Died | 29 December 1986 Horsted Keynes, West Sussex, England | (aged 92)||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Resting place | St Giles' Church, Horsted Keynes, West Sussex, England | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Political party | Conservative | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Spouse | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Children | 4, including Maurice and Caroline | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Alma mater | Balliol College, Oxford | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Occupation |
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Civilian awards |
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Military service | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Branch/service | British Army | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Years of service | 1914–1920 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rank | Captain | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Unit | Grenadier Guards | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton,
Macmillan was badly injured as an infantry officer during the First World War. He suffered pain and partial immobility for the rest of his life. After the war he joined
When Eden resigned in 1957 following the
In international affairs, Macmillan worked to rebuild the
Early life
Family
Macmillan was born on 10 February 1894, at 52
Education and early political views
Macmillan received an intensive early education, closely guided by his American mother. He learned French at home every morning from a succession of nursery maids, and exercised daily at Mr Macpherson's Gymnasium and Dancing Academy, around the corner from the family home.[11] From the age of six or seven he received introductory lessons in classical Latin and Greek at Mr Gladstone's day school, close by in Sloane Square.[12][13]
Macmillan attended
In his youth, he was an admirer of the policies and leadership of a succession of Liberal prime ministers, starting with Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who came to power when Macmillan was 11 years old, and then H. H. Asquith, whom he later described as having "intellectual sincerity and moral nobility", and particularly of Asquith's successor, David Lloyd George, whom he regarded as a "man of action", likely to accomplish his goals.[18][page needed]
Macmillan went up to Balliol College in 1912, where he joined many political societies. His political opinions at this stage were an eclectic mix of moderate conservatism, moderate liberalism and
War service
Volunteering as soon as war was declared, Macmillan was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant in the King's Royal Rifle Corps on 19 November 1914.[22][23] Promoted to lieutenant on 30 January 1915,[24] he soon transferred to the Grenadier Guards.[25] He fought on the front lines in France, where the casualty rate was high, including the probability of an "early and violent death".[18][page needed] He served with distinction and was wounded on three occasions. Shot in the right hand and receiving a glancing bullet wound to the head in the Battle of Loos in September 1915, Macmillan was sent to Lennox Gardens in Chelsea for hospital treatment, then joined a reserve battalion at Chelsea Barracks from January to March 1916, until his hand had healed. He then returned to the front lines in France. Leading an advance platoon in the Battle of Flers–Courcelette (part of the Battle of the Somme) in September 1916, he was severely wounded, and lay for over twelve hours in a shell hole, sometimes feigning death when Germans passed, and reading Aeschylus in the original Greek.[26] Raymond Asquith, eldest son of the prime minister, was a brother officer in Macmillan's regiment and was killed that month.[27]
Macmillan spent the final two years of the war in hospital undergoing a series of operations.[28] He was still on crutches at the Armistice of 11 November 1918.[29] His hip wound took four years to heal completely, and he was left with a slight shuffle to his walk and a limp grip in his right hand from his previous wound, which affected his handwriting.[30]
Macmillan saw himself as both a "gownsman" and a "swordsman" and would later display open contempt for other politicians (e.g. Rab Butler, Hugh Gaitskell, Harold Wilson) who, often through no fault of their own, had not seen military service in either World War.[31]
Canadian aide-de-campship
Of the scholars and exhibitioners of his year, only he and one other survived the war.[32] As a result, he refused to return to Oxford to complete his degree, saying the university would never be the same;[33] in later years he joked that he had been "sent down by the Kaiser".[34]
Owing to the impending contraction of the Army after the war, a regular commission in the Grenadiers was out of the question.[35] However, at the end of 1918 Macmillan joined the Guards Reserve Battalion at Chelsea Barracks for "light duties".[36] On one occasion he had to command reliable troops in a nearby park as a unit of Guardsmen was briefly refusing to reembark for France, although the incident was resolved peacefully. The incident prompted an inquiry from the War Office as to whether the Guards Reserve Battalion "could be relied on".[37]
Macmillan then served in Ottawa, Canada, in 1919 as aide-de-camp (ADC) to Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire, then Governor General of Canada, and his future father-in-law.[38] The engagement of Captain Macmillan to the Duke's daughter Lady Dorothy was announced on 7 January 1920.[39] He relinquished his commission on 1 April 1920.[40] As was common for contemporary former officers, he continued to be known as 'Captain Macmillan' until the early 1930s and was listed as such in every general election between 1923 and 1931.[41] As late as his North African posting of 1942–43 he reminded Churchill that he held the rank of captain in the Guards reserve.[42]
Macmillan Publishers
On his return to London in 1920 he joined the family publishing firm Macmillan Publishers as a junior partner. In 1936, Harold and his brother Daniel took control of the firm, with the former focusing on the political and non-fiction side of the business.[18][page needed] Harold resigned from the company on appointment to ministerial office in 1940. He resumed working with the firm from 1945 to 1951 when the party was in opposition.
Personal life
According to Michael Bloch, there have long been rumours that Macmillan was expelled from Eton for homosexuality. Macmillan's biographer D. R. Thorpe is of the view that he was removed by his mother when she discovered that he was being "used" by older boys.[43] Dick Leonard reports that Alistair Horne refers to "inevitable rumours" and that "he left for the 'usual reasons' for boys to be expelled from public schools".[44]
Marriage
Macmillan married
In 1929, Lady Dorothy began a lifelong affair with the Conservative politician
The Macmillans had four children:
- Maurice Macmillan, Viscount Macmillan of Ovenden(1921–1984)
- Lady Caroline Faber (1923–2016)
- Lady Catherine Amery(1926–1991)
- Sarah Heath (1930–1970). A family rumour that Boothby was her natural father has been discounted by the most recent and detailed study.[18][page needed]
Lady Dorothy died on 21 May 1966, aged 65.
In old age, Macmillan was a close friend of Ava Anderson, Viscountess Waverley, née Bodley, the widow of John Anderson, 1st Viscount Waverley.[50] Eileen O'Casey, née Reynolds, the actress wife of Irish dramatist Seán O'Casey, was another female friend, Macmillan publishing her husband's plays. Although she is said to have replaced Lady Dorothy in Macmillan's affections, there is disagreement over how intimate they became after the deaths of their respective spouses, and whether he proposed.[51][52][53][54]
Political career, 1924–1951
Member of Parliament (1924–1929)
Macmillan contested the depressed northern industrial constituency of Stockton-on-Tees in 1923. The campaign cost him about £200-£300 out of his own pocket;[55] at that time candidates were often expected to fund their own election campaigns. The collapse in the Liberal vote let him win in 1924.[56] In 1927, four MPs, including Boothby and Macmillan, published a short book advocating radical measures.[56] In 1928, Macmillan was described by his political hero, and now Parliamentary colleague, David Lloyd George, as a "born rebel".[18][page needed][57]
Macmillan lost his seat in
Member of Parliament (1931–1939)
Macmillan spent the 1930s on the backbenches. In March 1932 he published "The State and Industry" (not to be confused with his earlier pamphlet "Industry and the State").[59] In September 1932 he made his first visit to the USSR.[60] Macmillan also published "The Next Step". He advocated cheap money and state direction of investment. In 1933 he was the sole author of "Reconstruction: A Plea for a National Unity". In 1935 he was one of 15 MPs to write "Planning for Employment". His next publication, "The Next Five Years", was overshadowed by Lloyd George's proposed "New Deal" in 1935.[59] Macmillan Press also published the work of the economist John Maynard Keynes.[56]
Macmillan resigned the government whip (but not the Conservative party one) in protest at the lifting of sanctions on Italy after her
The Next Five Years Group, to which Macmillan had belonged, was wound up in November 1937. His book The Middle Way appeared in June 1938, advocating a broadly centrist political philosophy both domestically and internationally. Macmillan took control of the magazine New Outlook and made sure it published political tracts rather than purely theoretical work.[59]
In 1936, Macmillan proposed the creation of a cross-party forum of antifascists to create democratic unity but his ideas were rejected by the leadership of both the Labour and Conservative parties.[63]
Macmillan supported Chamberlain's first flight for talks with
Phoney War (1939–1940)
Macmillan visited Finland in February 1940, then the subject of great sympathy in Britain as it was being
Macmillan voted against the Government in the Norway Debate of May 1940, helping to bring down Neville Chamberlain as prime minister, and tried to join in with Colonel Josiah Wedgwood singing "Rule, Britannia!" in the House of Commons Chamber.[67]
Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Supply (1940–1942)
Macmillan at last attained office by serving in the
Macmillan's job was to provide armaments and other equipment to the
Colonial Under-Secretary (1942)
Macmillan was appointed
The governing principle of the Colonial Empire should be the principle of partnership between the various elements composing it. Out of partnership comes understanding and friendship. Within the fabric of the Commonwealth lies the future of the Colonial territories.[71]
Macmillan predicted that the Conservatives faced landslide defeat after the war, causing Channon to write (6 Sep 1944) of "the foolish prophecy of that nice ass Harold Macmillan". In October 1942 Harold Nicolson recorded Macmillan as predicting "extreme socialism" after the war.[72] Macmillan nearly resigned when Oliver Stanley was appointed Secretary of State in November 1942, as he would no longer be the spokesman in the Commons as he had been under Cranborne. Brendan Bracken advised him not to quit.[73]
Minister Resident in the Mediterranean (1942–1945)
After
On 22 February 1943, Macmillan was badly burned in a plane crash,[79] trying to climb back into the plane to rescue a Frenchman. He had to have a plaster cast put on his face. In his delirium he imagined himself back in a Somme casualty clearing station and asked for a message to be passed to his mother, now dead.[80]
Together with
Macmillan visited Greece on 11 December 1944. As the Germans had withdrawn, British troops under
Macmillan was also the minister advising
Air Secretary (1945)
Macmillan toyed with an offer to succeed Duff Cooper as MP for the safe Conservative seat of
Macmillan returned to England after the European war, feeling himself 'almost a stranger at home'.[90] He was Secretary of State for Air for two months in Churchill's caretaker government, 'much of which was taken up in electioneering', there being 'nothing much to be done in the way of forward planning'.[91]
Opposition (1945–1951)
Macmillan indeed lost Stockton in the landslide Labour victory of July 1945, but returned to Parliament in the November 1945 by-election in Bromley. In his diary Harold Nicolson noted the feelings of the Tory backbenchers: "They feel that Winston is too old and Anthony (Eden) too weak. They want Harold Macmillan to lead them."[92]
He was a member of the British delegation to the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe from 1949 to 1951, and played a prominent role – as a key aide and ally of Winston Churchill – in pressing for greater European integration as a bulwark against Soviet totalitarianism and to prevent a recurrence of the horrors of Nazi rule.
Although Macmillan played an important role in drafting the "
Political career, 1951–1957
Housing Minister (1951–1954)
With the Conservative victory in 1951 Macmillan became Minister of Housing & Local Government under Churchill, who entrusted him with fulfilling the pledge to build 300,000 houses per year (up from the previous target of 200,000 a year), made in response to a speech from the floor at the 1950 Party Conference. Macmillan thought at first that Housing, which ranked 13 out of 16 in the Cabinet list, was a poisoned chalice, writing in his diary (28 October 1951) that it was "not my cup of tea at all ... I really haven't a clue how to set about the job". It meant obtaining scarce steel, cement and timber when the Treasury were trying to maximise exports and minimise imports.[94] 'It is a gamble—it will make or mar your political career,' Churchill said, 'but every humble home will bless your name if you succeed.'[95]
By July 1952 Macmillan was already criticising Butler (then Chancellor of the Exchequer) in his diary, accusing him of "dislik(ing) and fear(ing) him"; in fact there is no evidence that Butler regarded Macmillan as a rival at this stage. In April 1953 Beaverbrook encouraged Macmillan to think that in a future leadership contest he might emerge in a dead heat between Eden and Butler, as the young Beaverbrook (Max Aitken as he had been at the time) had helped Bonar Law to do in 1911.[96] In July 1953 Macmillan considered postponing his gall bladder operation in case Churchill, who had just suffered a serious stroke while Eden was also in hospital, had to step down.[97]
Macmillan achieved his housing target by the end of 1953, a year ahead of schedule.[98][99]
Minister of Defence (1954–1955)
Macmillan was Minister of Defence from October 1954, but found his authority restricted by Churchill's personal involvement.[100] In the opinion of The Economist: 'He gave the impression that his own undoubted capacity for imaginative running of his own show melted way when an august superior was breathing down his neck.'[101]
A major theme of his tenure at Defence was the ministry's growing reliance on the nuclear deterrent, in the view of some critics, to the detriment of conventional forces.
"It breaks my heart to see the lion-hearted Churchill begin to sink into a sort of
During the Second World War Macmillan's toothy grin, baggy trousers and rimless glasses had given him, as his biographer puts it, "an air of an early Bolshevik leader".[105] By the 1950s he had had his teeth capped, grew his hair in a more shapely style, wore Savile Row suits and walked with the ramrod bearing of a former Guards officer, acquiring the distinguished appearance of his later career.[106] Campbell writes "there has been no more startling personal reinvention in British politics".[107] He very often wore either an Old Etonian or a Brigade of Guards tie.[108] Campbell also suggests that Harold Wilson's image change during Macmillan's premiership from "boring young statistician into lovable Yorkshire comic" was made in conscious imitation of Macmillan.[72]
Foreign Secretary (1955)
Macmillan was
Nothing he can say can do very much good and almost anything he may say may do a great deal of harm. Anything he says that is not obvious is dangerous; whatever is not trite is risky. He is forever poised between the cliché and the indiscretion.[109]
Chancellor of the Exchequer (1955–1957)
Budget
Macmillan was appointed
Macmillan planned to reverse the 6d cut in income tax which Butler had made a year previously, but backed off after a "frank talk" with Butler, who threatened resignation, on 28 March 1956. He settled for spending cuts instead, and himself threatened resignation until he was allowed to cut bread and milk subsidies, something the Cabinet had not permitted Butler to do.[112]
One of his innovations at the
Although the Labour Opposition initially decried them as a 'squalid raffle', they proved an immediate hit with the public, with £1,000 won in the first prize draw in June 1957.A young John Major attended the presentation of the budget, and attributes his political ambitions to this event.[115]
Suez
In November 1956, Britain invaded
Macmillan threatened to resign if force was not used against Nasser.
The treasury was his portfolio, but he did not recognise the financial disaster that could result from US government actions. Sterling was draining out of the Bank of England at an alarming rate. The canal was blocked by the Egyptians, and most oil shipments were delayed as tankers had to go around Africa. The US government refused any financial help until Britain withdrew its forces from Egypt. When he did realise this, he changed his mind and called for withdrawal on US terms, while exaggerating the financial crisis.[123] On 6 November Macmillan informed the Cabinet that Britain had lost $370m in the first few days of November alone.[124] Faced with Macmillan's prediction of doom, the cabinet had no choice but to accept these terms and withdraw. The Canal remained in Egyptian hands, and Nasser's government continued its support of Arab and African national resistance movements opposed to the British and French presence in the region and on the continent.[123]
In later life Macmillan was open about his failure to read Eisenhower's thoughts correctly and much regretted the damage done to Anglo-American relations, but always maintained that the Anglo-French military response to the nationalisation of the Canal had been for the best.[125] D. R. Thorpe rejects the charge that Macmillan deliberately played false over Suez (i.e. encouraged Eden to attack in order to destroy him as Prime Minister), noting that Macmillan privately put the chances of success at 51–49.[126]
Succession to Eden
Britain's humiliation at the hands of the US caused deep anger among Conservative MPs. After the ceasefire a motion on the Order Paper attacking the US for "gravely endangering the Atlantic Alliance" attracted the signatures of over a hundred MPs.[127] Macmillan tried, but failed, to see Eisenhower (who was also refusing to see Foreign Secretary
On the evening of 22 November 1956 Butler, who had just announced British withdrawal, addressed the
Butler later recorded that during his period as acting Head of Government at Number Ten, he noticed constant comings and goings of ministers to Macmillan's study in Number 11 next door—and that those who attended all seemed to receive promotions when Macmillan became prime minister. Macmillan had opposed Eden's trip to Jamaica and told Butler (15 December, the day after Eden's return) that younger members of the Cabinet wanted Eden out.[133] Macmillan argued at Cabinet on 4 January that Suez should be regarded as a "strategic retreat" like Mons or Dunkirk. This did not meet with Eden's approval at Cabinet on 7 January.[134]
His political standing destroyed, Eden resigned on grounds of ill health on 9 January 1957.[135] At that time the Conservative Party had no formal mechanism for selecting a new leader, and Queen Elizabeth II appointed Macmillan Prime Minister after taking advice from Churchill and the Marquess of Salisbury, who had asked the Cabinet individually for their opinions, all but two or three opting for Macmillan. This surprised some observers who had expected that Eden's deputy Rab Butler would be chosen.[136] The political situation after Suez was so desperate that on taking office on 10 January he told the Queen he could not guarantee his government would last "six weeks"—though ultimately he would be in charge of the government for more than six years.[137]
Prime Minister (1957–1963)
Alec Douglas-Home → | |
Coat of arms of HM Government |
First government, 1957–1959
From the start of his premiership, Macmillan set out to portray an image of calm and style, in contrast to his excitable predecessor. He silenced the klaxon on the Prime Ministerial car, which Eden had used frequently. He advertised his love of reading Anthony Trollope and Jane Austen, and on the door of the Private Secretaries' room at Number Ten he hung a quote from The Gondoliers: "Quiet, calm deliberation disentangles every knot".[138]
Macmillan filled government posts with 35 Old Etonians, seven of them in Cabinet.[139] He was also devoted to family members: when Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire was later appointed (Minister for Colonial Affairs from 1963 to 1964 among other positions) he described his uncle's behaviour as "the greatest act of nepotism ever".[140] Macmillan's Defence Minister, Duncan Sandys, wrote at the time: "Eden had no gift for leadership; under Macmillan as PM everything is better, Cabinet meetings are quite transformed".[141] Many ministers found Macmillan to be more decisive and brisk than either Churchill or Eden had been.[141] Another of Macmillan's ministers, Charles Hill, stated that Macmillan dominated Cabinet meetings "by sheer superiority of mind and of judgement".[142] Macmillan frequently made allusions to history, literature and the classics at cabinet meetings, giving him a reputation as being both learned and entertaining, though many ministers found his manner too authoritarian.[142] Macmillan had no "inner cabinet", and instead maintained one-on-one relationships with a few senior ministers such as Rab Butler who usually served as acting prime minister when Macmillan was on one of his frequent visits abroad.[142] Selwyn Lloyd described Macmillan as treating most of his ministers like "junior officers in a unit he commanded".[142] Lloyd recalled that Macmillan: "regarded the Cabinet as an instrument to play upon, a body to be molded to his will...very rarely did he fail to get his way"[142] Macmillan generally allowed his ministers much leeway in managing their portfolios, and only intervened if he felt something had gone wrong.[141] Macmillan was especially close to his three private secretaries, Tom Bligh, Freddie Bishop and Philip de Zulueta, who were his favourite advisers.[142] Many cabinet ministers often complained that Macmillan took the advice of his private secretaries more seriously than he did their own.[142]
He was nicknamed "Supermac" in 1958 by the cartoonist Victor Weisz, who intended to suggest that Macmillan was trying set himself up as a "Superman" figure.[142] 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 widespread cabinet changes in 1962, but none caught on.[143]
Economy
Besides foreign affairs, the economy was Macmillan's other prime concern.
This period also saw the first stirrings of more active monetary policy. Official bank rate, which had been kept low since the 1930s, was hiked in September 1958.[145] The change in bank rate prompted rumours in the City that some financiers – who were Bank of England directors with senior positions in private firms – took advantage of advance knowledge of the rate change in what resembled insider trading. Political pressure mounted on the Government, and Macmillan agreed to the 1957 Bank Rate Tribunal. Hearing evidence in the winter of 1957 and reporting in January 1958, this inquiry exonerated all involved in what some journalists perceived to be a whitewash.[147]
Domestic policies
During his time as prime minister, average living standards steadily rose
Foreign policy
Macmillan took close control of foreign policy. He worked to narrow the post-Suez Crisis (1956) rift with the United States, where his wartime friendship with Eisenhower was key; the two had a productive conference in Bermuda as early as March 1957.
In February 1959, Macmillan visited the Soviet Union. Talks with Nikita Khrushchev eased tensions in east–west relations over West Berlin and led to an agreement in principle to stop nuclear tests and to hold a further summit meeting of Allied and Soviet heads of government.[153]
In the Middle East, faced by the 1958 collapse of the
Macmillan was a major proponent and architect of
Nuclear weapons
In April 1957, Macmillan reaffirmed his strong support for the
Macmillan's decision led to increased demands on the
Concerned that public confidence in the nuclear programme might be shaken and that technical information might be misused by opponents of defence co-operation in the
On 25 March 1957, Macmillan acceded to Eisenhower's request to base 60
Macmillan saw an opportunity to increase British influence over the United States with the launching of the Soviet satellite Sputnik, which caused a severe crisis of confidence in the United States as Macmillan wrote in his diary: "The Russian success in launching the satellite has been something equivalent to Pearl Harbour. The American cockiness is shaken....President is under severe attack for the first time...The atmosphere is now such that almost anything might be decided, however revolutionary".[168] The "revolutionary" change that Macmillan sought was a more equal Anglo-American partnership as he used the Sputnik crisis to press Eisenhower to in turn press Congress to repeal the 1946 MacMahon Act, which forbade the United States to share nuclear technology with foreign governments, a goal accomplished by the end of 1957.[169]
In addition, Macmillan succeeded in having Eisenhower to agree to set up Anglo-American "working groups" to examine foreign policy problems and for what he called the "Declaration of Interdependence" (a title not used by the Americans who called it the "Declaration of Common Purpose"), which he believed marked the beginning of a new era of Anglo-American partnership.[170] Subsequently, Macmillan was to learn that neither Eisenhower nor Kennedy shared the assumption that he applied to the "Declaration of Interdependence" that the American president and the British Prime Minister had equal power over the decisions of war and peace.[171] Macmillan believed that the American policies towards the Soviet Union were too rigid and confrontational, and favoured a policy of détente with the aim of relaxing Cold War tensions.[172]
1959 general election
Macmillan led the Conservatives to victory in the 1959 general election, increasing his party's majority from 60 to 100 seats. The campaign was based on the economic improvements achieved as well as the low unemployment and improving standard of living; the slogan "Life's Better Under the Conservatives" was matched by Macmillan's own 1957 remark, "indeed let us be frank about it—most of our people have never had it so good,"[173] usually paraphrased as "You've never had it so good." Such rhetoric reflected a new reality of working-class affluence; it has been argued that "the key factor in the Conservative victory was that average real pay for industrial workers had risen since Churchill's 1951 victory by over 20 per cent".[174] The scale of the victory meant that not only had the Conservatives won three successive general elections, but they had also increased their majority each time. It sparked debate as to whether Labour (now led by Hugh Gaitskell) could win a general election again. The standard of living had risen enough that workers could participate in a consumer economy, shifting the working class concerns away from traditional Labour Party views.[175]
Second government, 1959–1963
Economy
Britain's
In the 1962 cabinet reshuffle known as the 'Night of the Long Knives', Macmillan sacked eight Ministers, including Selwyn Lloyd. The Cabinet changes were widely seen as a sign of panic, and the young Liberal MP Jeremy Thorpe said of Macmillan's dismissals, "greater love hath no man than this, than to lay down his friends for his life". Macmillan was openly criticised by his predecessor Lord Avon, an almost unprecedented act.[180]
Macmillan supported the creation of the National Economic Development Council (NEDC, known as "Neddy"), which was announced in the summer of 1961 and first met in 1962. However, the National Incomes Commission (NIC, known as "Nicky"), set up in October 1962 to institute controls on income as part of his growth-without-inflation policy, proved less effective. This was largely due to employers and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) boycotting it.[176] A further series of subtle indicators and controls was introduced during his premiership.
The report The Reshaping of British Railways
Foreign policy
In the age of jet aircraft Macmillan travelled more than any previous Prime Minister, apart from Lloyd George who made many trips to conferences in 1919–22.[182] Macmillan planned an important role in setting up a four power summit in Paris to discuss the Berlin crisis that was supposed to open in May 1960, but which Khrushchev refused to attend owing to the U-2 incident.[183] Macmillan pressed Eisenhower to apologise to Khrushchev, which the president refused to do.[184] Macmillan's failure to make Eisenhower "say sorry" to Khrushchev forced him to reconsider his "Greeks and Romans" foreign policy as he privately conceded that could no "longer talk usefully to the Americans".[184] The failure of the Paris summit changed Macmillan's attitude towards the European Economic Community, which he started to see as a counterbalance to American power.[185] At the same time, the Anglo-American "working groups", which Macmillan attached such importance to turned out to be largely ineffective as the Americans did not wish to have their options limited by a British veto; by in-fighting between agencies of the U.S. government such as the State Department, Defense Department, etc.; and because of the Maclean-Burgess affair of 1951 the Americans believed the British government was full of Soviet spies and thus could not be trusted.[185]
Relations with the United States
The special relationship with the United States continued after the election of President John F. Kennedy, whose sister Kathleen Cavendish had married William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington, the nephew of Macmillan's wife. Macmillan initially was concerned that the Irish-American Catholic Kennedy might be an Anglophobe, which led Macmillan, who knew of Kennedy's special interest in the Third World, to suggest that Britain and the United States spend more money on aid to the Third World.[186] The emphasis on aid to the Third World also coincided well with Macmillan's "one nation conservatism" as he wrote in a letter to Kennedy advocating reforms to capitalism to ensure full employment: "If we fail in this, Communism will triumph, not by war or even by subversion but by seemingly to be a better way of bringing people material comforts".[186]
Macmillan was scheduled to visit the United States in April 1961, but with the
The failure of the
He was supportive throughout the
Macmillan was a supporter of the nuclear test ban treaty of 1963, and in the first half of 1963 he had Ormsby-Gore quietly apply pressure on Kennedy to resume the talks in the spring of 1963 when negotiations became stalled. Feeling that the Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was being obstructionist, Macmillan telephoned Kennedy on 11 April 1963 to suggest a joint letter to Khrushchev to break the impasse.[197] Through Khrushchev's reply to the Macmillan-Kennedy letter was mostly negative, Macmillan pressed Kennedy to take up the one positive aspect in his reply, namely that if a senior Anglo-American team would arrive in Moscow, he would welcome them to discuss how best to proceed about a nuclear test ban treaty.[197] The two envoys who arrived in Moscow were W. Averell Harriman representing the United States and Lord Hailsham representing the United Kingdom.[198] Through Lord Hailsham's role was largely that of an observer, the talks between Harriman and the Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko resulted in the breakthrough that led to the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of August 1963, banning all above ground nuclear tests.[198] Macmillan had a pressing domestic reasons for the nuclear test ban treaty. Newsreel footage of Soviet and American nuclear tests throughout the 1950s had terrified segments of the British public who were highly concerned about the possibility of weapons with such destructive power be used against British cities, and led to the foundation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), whose rallies in the late 1950s-early 1960s calling for British nuclear disarmament were well attended. Macmillan believed in the value of nuclear weapons both as a deterrent against the Soviet Union and to maintain Britain's claim to be great power, but he was also worried about the popularity of the CND.[199] For Macmillan, banning above ground nuclear tests which generated film footage of the ominous mushroom clouds raising far above the earth was the best way to dent the appeal of the CND, and in this the Partial Nuclear Ban Treaty of 1963 was successful.[199]
Wind of Change
Macmillan's first government had seen the first phase of the sub-Saharan African independence movement, which accelerated under his second government.[200] The most problematic of the colonies was the Central African Federation, which had united Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland together in 1953 largely out of the fear that the white population of Southern Rhodesia (modern Zimbabwe) might want to join South Africa, which had since 1948 had been led by Afrikaner nationalists distinctly unfriendly to Britain.[201] Through the Central African Federation had been presented as a multi-racial attempt to develop the region, the federation had been unstable right from the start with the black population charging that the whites had been given a privileged position.[201]
Macmillan felt that if the costs of holding onto a particular territory outweighed the benefits then it should be dispensed with. During the
Nigeria, the Southern Cameroons and British Somaliland were granted independence in 1960, Sierra Leone and Tanganyika in 1961, Trinidad and Tobago and Uganda in 1962, and Kenya in 1963. Zanzibar merged with Tanganyika to form Tanzania in 1963. All remained within the Commonwealth except British Somaliland, which merged with Italian Somaliland to form Somalia.
Macmillan's policy overrode the hostility of white minorities and the
In Southeast Asia, Malaya, Sabah (British North Borneo), Sarawak and Singapore became independent as Malaysia in 1963. Because Singapore with its ethnic Chinese majority was the largest and wealthiest city in the region, Macmillan was afraid that a federation of Malaya and Singapore together would result in a Chinese majority state, and insisted on including Sarawak and British North Borneo into the federation of Malaysia to ensure the new state was a Malay majority state.[204] During the Malaya Emergency, the majority of the Communist guerrillas were ethnic Chinese, and British policies tended to favour the Muslim Malays whose willingness to follow their sultans and imams made them more anti-communist. Southeast Asia was a region where racial-ethno-religious politics predominated, and the substantial Chinese minorities in the region were widely disliked on the account of their greater economic success.[205] Macmillan wanted Britain to retain military bases in the new state of Malaysia to ensure that Britain was a military power in Asia and thus he wanted the new state of Malaysia to have a pro-Western government.[204] This aim was best achieved by having the same Malay elite who had worked with the British colonial authorities serve as the new elite in Malaysia, hence Macmillan's desire to have a Malay majority who would vote for Malay politicians.[204] Macmillan especially wanted to keep the British base at Singapore, which he like other prime ministers saw as the linchpin of British power in Asia.[206]
The Indonesian president
The speedy transfer of power maintained the goodwill of the new nations but critics contended it was premature. In justification Macmillan quoted
Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free until they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water until he had learnt to swim. If men are to wait for liberty until they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait for ever.[213]
Skybolt crisis
Macmillan cancelled the
Europe
Macmillan worked with states outside the European Communities (EC) to form the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), which from 3 May 1960 established a free-trade area. As the EC proved to be an economic success, membership of the EC started to look more attractive compared to the EFTA.[214] A report from Sir Frank Lee of the Treasury in April 1960 predicated that the three major power blocs in the decades to come would be those headed by the United States, the Soviet Union and the EC, and argued to avoid isolation Britain would to have decisively associate itself with one of the power blocs.[214] Macmillan wrote in his diary about his decision to apply to join the EC: "Shall we be caught between a hostile (or at least less and less friendly) America and a boastful, powerful 'Empire of Charlemagne'-now under French, but later bound to come under German control?...It's a grim choice".[214]
Through Macmillan had decided upon joining the EC in 1960, he waited until July 1961 to formally make the application, for he feared the reaction of the Conservative Party backbenchers, the farmers' lobby and the populist newspaper chain owned by the right-wing Canadian millionaire
Macmillan also saw the value of rapprochement with the EC, to which his government sought belated entry, but Britain's application was vetoed by French president Charles de Gaulle on 29 January 1963. De Gaulle was always strongly opposed to British entry for many reasons. He sensed the British were inevitably closely linked to the Americans. He saw the European Communities as a continental arrangement primarily between France and Germany, and felt that if Britain joined, France's role would diminish.[215][216]
Partial Test Ban Treaty (1963)
Macmillan's previous attempt to create an agreement at the May 1960 summit in Paris had collapsed due to the
President Kennedy visited Macmillan's country home, Birch Grove, on 29–30 June 1963, for talks about the planned Multilateral Force. They never met again, and this was to be Kennedy's last visit to the UK. He was assassinated in November, shortly after the end of Macmillan's premiership.[218]
End of premiership
By the early 1960s, many were starting to find Macmillan's courtly and urbane Edwardian manners anachronistic, and satirical journals such as Private Eye and the television show That Was the Week That Was mercilessly mocked him as a doddering, clueless leader.[219] Macmillan's handling of the Vassall affair – in which an Admiralty clerk, John Vassall, was convicted in October 1962 of passing secrets to the Soviet Union – undermined his "Super-Mac" reputation for competence.[219] D. R. Thorpe writes that from January 1963 "Macmillan's strategy lay in ruins", leaving him looking for a "graceful exit". The Vassall affair turned the press against him.[220] In the same month, opposition leader Hugh Gaitskell died suddenly at the age of 56. With a general election due before the end of the following year, Gaitskell's death threw the future of British politics into fresh doubt.[221] The following month Harold Wilson was elected as the new Labour leader, and he proved to be a popular choice with the public.[222]
Profumo affair
The
Resignation
By the summer of 1963
Macmillan had a meeting with Butler on 11 September and was careful to keep his options open (retire now, retire in the New Year, or fight the next election). He talked the matter over with his son Maurice and other senior ministers. Over lunch with Lord Swinton on 30 September he favoured stepping down, but only if Baron Hailsham could be shoehorned in as his successor. He saw Butler on the morning of 7 October and told him he planned to stay on to lead the Conservatives into the next General Election, then was struck down by prostate problems on the night of 7–8 October, on the eve of the Conservative Party conference.[227][228]
Macmillan was operated on at 11.30 am on 10 October. Although it is sometimes stated that he believed himself to have inoperable prostate cancer, he in fact knew it was benign before the operation.[229] Macmillan was almost ready to leave hospital within ten days of the diagnosis and could easily have carried on, in the opinion of his doctor Sir John Richardson.[230] His illness gave him a way out.[231]
Succession
While recovering in hospital, Macmillan wrote a memorandum (dated 14 October) recommending the process by which "soundings" would be taken of party opinion to select his successor, which was accepted by the Cabinet on 15 October. This time backbench MPs and junior ministers were to be asked their opinion, rather than just the Cabinet as in 1957, and efforts would be made to sample opinion amongst peers and constituency activists.[231]
Enoch Powell claimed that it was wrong of Macmillan to seek to monopolise the advice given to the Queen in this way. In fact, this was done at the Palace's request, so that the Queen was not being seen to be involved in politics as had happened in January 1957, and had been decided as far back as June when it had looked as though the government might fall over the Profumo scandal. Ben Pimlott later described this as the "biggest political misjudgement of her reign".[232][233]
Macmillan was succeeded by 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', who had slanted their "soundings" of opinion among MPs and Cabinet Ministers to ensure that Butler was (once again) not chosen.[234]
He finally resigned, receiving the Queen from his hospital bed, on 18 October 1963, after nearly seven years as prime minister. He felt privately that he was being hounded from office by a backbench minority:
Some few will be content with the success they have had in the assassination of their leader and will not care very much who the successor is. ... They are a band that in the end does not amount to more than 15 or 20 at the most.[235]
Retirement, 1963–1986
Macmillan initially refused a peerage and retired from politics in September 1964, a month before the 1964 election, which the Conservatives narrowly lost to Labour, now led by Harold Wilson.[236] His service in the House of Commons totalled 37 years.
Oxford chancellor (1960–1986)
Macmillan had been elected
Return to Macmillan Publishers
In retirement Macmillan took up the chairmanship of his family's publishing house, Macmillan Publishers, from 1964 to 1974. The publishing firm remained in family hands until a majority share was purchased in 1995 by the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group; the imprint persists. Macmillan brought out a six-volume autobiography:
- Winds of Change, 1914–1939 (1966) ISBN 0-333-06639-1
- The Blast of War, 1939–1945 (1967) ISBN 0-333-00358-6
- Tides of Fortune, 1945–1955 (1969) ISBN 0-333-04077-5
- Riding the Storm, 1956–1959 (1971) ISBN 0-333-10310-6
- Pointing the Way, 1959–1961 (1972) ISBN 0-333-12411-1
- At the End of the Day, 1961–1963 (1973) ISBN 0-333-12413-8
Macmillan's biographer acknowledges that his memoirs were considered "heavy going".[238] Reading these volumes was said by Macmillan's political enemy Enoch Powell to induce 'a sensation akin to that of chewing on cardboard'.[239] Butler wrote in his review of Riding the Storm: "Altogether this massive work will keep anybody busy for several weeks."[240]
Macmillan's wartime diaries were better received.
- War Diaries: Politics and War in the Mediterranean, January 1943 – May 1945 (London: Macmillan, 1984) ISBN 0-333-37198-4
Since Macmillan's death, his diaries for the 1950s and 1960s have also been published, both edited by
- The Macmillan Diaries: The Cabinet Years 1950–57 (London: Macmillan, 2003) ISBN 0-333-71167-X
- The Macmillan Diaries Vol II: Prime Minister and After 1957–1966 (London: Macmillan, 2011) ISBN 1-405-04721-6
Macmillan burned his diary for the climax of the Suez Affair, supposedly at Eden's request, although in Campbell's view more likely to protect his own reputation.[241]
London clubs
Macmillan was a member of many clubs. On his first evening as Prime Minister he made a public show of taking the
He became President of the Carlton Club in 1977 and would often stay at the club when he had to stay in London overnight. Within a few months of becoming President he merged the Carlton and Junior Carlton. He was also a member of Buck's, Pratt's, the Turf Club and Beefsteak Club. He also once commented that White's was 75% gentlemen and 25% crooks, the perfect combination for a club.[242]
Political interventions
Macmillan made occasional political interventions in retirement. Responding to a remark made by Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson about not having boots in which to go to school, Macmillan retorted: 'If Mr Wilson did not have boots to go to school that is because he was too big for them.'[243]
Macmillan accepted the
Macmillan still travelled widely, visiting China in October 1979, where he held talks with senior Vice-Premier Deng Xiaoping.[246]
Relations with Margaret Thatcher
Macmillan found himself drawn more actively into politics after Margaret Thatcher became Conservative leader in February 1975.[247] After she ended Labour's five-year rule and became prime minister in May 1979,[248] he told Nigel Fisher (his biographer, and himself a Conservative MP): "Ted [Heath] was a very good No2 {pause} not a leader {pause}. Now, you have a real leader. {long pause} Whether she's leading you in the right direction ..."[249]
The record of Macmillan's own premiership came under attack from the
Was it America? Or was it
neo-Keynesian. The other said, 'Starve a cold'; she was a monetarist.[251]
Macmillan was one of several people who advised Thatcher to set up a small
With hereditary peerages again being created under Thatcher, Macmillan requested the earldom that had been customarily bestowed to departing prime ministers, and on 24 February 1984 he was created
It breaks my heart to see—and I cannot interfere—what is happening in our country today. This terrible strike, by the best men in the world, who beat the Kaiser's and Hitler's armies and never gave in. It is pointless and we cannot afford that kind of thing. Then there is the growing division of comparative prosperity in the south and an ailing north and Midlands. We used to have battles and rows but they were quarrels. Now there is a new kind of wicked hatred that has been brought in by different types of people.[251]
As Chancellor of Oxford University, Macmillan condemned its refusal in February 1985 to award Thatcher an honorary degree. He noted that the decision represented a break with tradition, and predicted that the snub would rebound on the university.[256]
Macmillan is widely supposed to have likened Thatcher's policy of
Macmillan's speech was much commented on, and a few days later he made a speech in the House of Lords, referring to it:
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.[258]
Death and funeral
Macmillan had often play-acted being an old man long before real old age set in. As early as 1948 Humphry Berkeley wrote of how "he makes a show of being feeble and decrepit", mentioning how he had suddenly stopped shambling and sprinted for a train. Nigel Fisher tells an anecdote of how Macmillan initially greeted him to his house leaning on a stick, but later walked and climbed steps perfectly well, twice acting lame again and fetching his stick when he remembered his "act". However, in genuine old age he became almost blind, causing him to need sticks and a helping arm.[259]
On the evening of 29 December 1986, Macmillan died at Birch Grove, the Macmillan family mansion on the edge of Ashdown Forest, in Horsted Keynes, West Sussex.[260][261] His grandson and heir Alexander, Viscount Macmillan of Ovenden, said: "In the last 48 hours he was very weak but entirely reasonable and intelligent. His last words were, 'I think I will go to sleep now'."[262][263] His lifespan of 92 years and 322 days was the longest of any British prime minister until surpassed by James Callaghan on 14 February 2005.[264]
Paying tribute, Thatcher hailed Macmillan as "a very remarkable man and a very great patriot", and said that his dislike of "selling the family silver" had never come between them. He was "unique in the affection of the British people".[265] Additional tributes came from around the world. US President Ronald Reagan said: "The American people share in the loss of a voice of wisdom and humanity who, with eloquence and gentle wit, brought to the problems of today the experience of a long life of public service."[237] Outlawed African National Congress president Oliver Tambo sent his condolences: 'As South Africans we shall always remember him for his efforts to encourage the apartheid regime to bow to the winds of change that continue to blow in South Africa.'[237] Commonwealth Secretary-General Sir Shridath Ramphal affirmed: "His own leadership in providing from Britain a worthy response to African national consciousness shaped the post-war era and made the modern Commonwealth possible."[237]
A private funeral was held on 5 January 1987 at St Giles' Church, Horsted Keynes, West Sussex, where he had regularly worshipped and read the lesson.[266] Two hundred mourners attended,[263] including 64 members of the Macmillan family, Thatcher and former premiers Lord Home and Edward Heath, as well as Lord Hailsham,[262] and "scores of country neighbours".[266] The Prince of Wales sent a wreath "in admiring memory".[262] He was buried beside his wife and next to his parents and his son Maurice, who had died in 1984.[266]
The House of Commons paid its tribute on 12 January 1987, with much reference made to his book The Middle Way.[267] Thatcher said: "In his retirement Harold Macmillan occupied a unique place in the nation's affections", while Labour leader Neil Kinnock struck a more critical note:
Death and distance cannot lend sufficient enchantment to alter the view that the period over which he presided in the 1950s, while certainly and thankfully a period of rising affluence and confidence, was also a time of opportunities missed, of changes avoided. Harold Macmillan was, of course, not solely or even pre-eminently responsible for that. But we cannot but record with frustration the fact that the vigorous and perceptive attacker of the status quo in the 1930s became its emblem for a time in the late 1950s before returning to be its critic in the 1980s.[267]
A public memorial service, attended by the Queen and thousands of mourners, was held on 10 February 1987 in Westminster Abbey.[268] Macmillan's estate was assessed for probate on 1 June 1987, with a value of £51,114 (equivalent to £181,601 in 2023[269]).[270]
Honours, awards and legacy
Macmillan was an elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1962.[271]
In 1976 he received the
Macmillan's archives are located at Oxford University's Bodleian Library.[272][273]
Macmillan was awarded a number of honorary degrees, including:
- 1956 – Indiana University[274]
- 1958 – DePauw University[275]
- 1958 – Johns Hopkins University, together with Eisenhower[276]
- 1961 – Cambridge University[277]
Historians' assessments of Macmillan's premiership
C. P. Snow wrote to Macmillan that his reputation would endure as, like Churchill, he was "psychologically interesting".[278]
An early biographer George Hutchinson called him "The Last Edwardian at Number Ten" (1980), mistakenly in the view of Nigel Fisher.[279] Fisher described him as "complex, almost chameleon".[280] At times he portrayed himself as the descendant of a Scottish crofter, as a businessman, aristocrat, intellectual and soldier. Labour leader Harold Wilson wrote that his "role as a poseur was itself a pose".[281] Wilson also argued that behind the public nonchalance lay a real professional.[279] Fisher also wrote that he "had a talent for pursuing progressive policies but presenting them tactfully in a Conservative tone of voice".[282]
Historian John Vincent explores the image Macmillan crafted of himself for his colleagues and constituents:
He presented himself as a patrician, as the last Edwardian, as a Whig (in the tradition of his wife's family), as a romantic Tory, as intellectual, as a man shaped by the comradeship of the trenches and by the slump of the 1930s, as a shrewd man of business of bourgeois Scottish stock, and as a venerable elder statesman at home with modern youth. There was something in all these views, which he did little to discourage, and which commanded public respect into the early 1960s. Whether he was ever a mainstream Conservative, rather than a skilful exponent of the postwar consensus, is more doubtful.[283]
Alistair Horne, his official biographer, concedes that after his re-election in 1959 Macmillan's premiership suffered a series of major setbacks.[284]
Campbell writes that: "a late developer who languished on the back benches ... in the 1930s, Macmillan seized his opportunity when it came with flair and ruthlessness, and [until about 1962] filled the highest office with compelling style". However, he argues that Macmillan is remembered as having been "a rather seedy conjuror", famous for Premium Bonds, Beeching's cuts to the railways, and the Profumo Scandal. He is also remembered for "stop-go" economics: first expansion despite the opposition of Thorneycroft and his team, then Selwyn Lloyd's Pay Pause, and then finally the Maudling boom, with Britain's relative economic decline, especially compared to the six founder countries of the EEC, becoming clear despite perceptions of consumer "affluence" in the late 1950s. In the 1980s the aged Macmillan was seen as "a revered but slightly pathetic figure".[285]
Dominic Sandbrook writes that Macmillan's final weeks were typical of his premiership, "devious, theatrical and self-seeking" although not without droll wit and intelligence. Macmillan is best remembered for the "affluent society", which he inherited rather than created in the late 1950s, but chancellors came and went and by the early 1960s economic policy was "nothing short of a shambles", while his achievements in foreign policy made little difference to the lives of the public. By the time he left office, largely unlamented at the time, he was associated not with prosperity but with "anachronism and decay".[citation needed]
D. R. Thorpe writes that by the early 1960s Macmillan was seen as "the epitome of all that was wrong with anachronistic Britain. This was an unfair charge." "The essence of his persona was as elusive as mercury." He was not a member of "the Establishment"—in fact he was a businessman who had married into the aristocracy and a rebel Chancellor of Oxford. "He had style in abundance, (and) was a star on the world stage". Thorpe argues that despite his 1960 "Winds of Change" speech, he was largely pushed into rapid independence for African countries by Maudling and Macleod.[286]
Richard Lamb argues that Macmillan was "by far the best of Britain's postwar Prime Ministers, and his administration performed better than any of their successors". Lamb argues that it is unfair to blame Macmillan for excessively quick African independence (resulting in many former colonies becoming dictatorships), or for the Beeching Plan (which was accepted by Labour in 1964, although Macmillan himself had reservations and had asked civil servants to draw up plans for extra road-building), and argues that had he remained in power Macmillan would never have allowed inflation to get as far out of hand as it did in the 1970s.[5]
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Cabinets (1957–1963)
January 1957 – October 1959
- Harold Macmillan: Prime Minister
- Lord Kilmuir: Lord Chancellor
- Lord Salisbury: Lord President of the Council
- Secretary of State for the Home Department
- Peter Thorneycroft: Chancellor of the Exchequer
- Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
- Alan Lennox-Boyd: Secretary of State for the Colonies
- Lord Home: Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations
- Sir David Eccles: President of the Board of Trade
- Charles Hill: Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
- Lord Hailsham: Minister of Education
- John Scott Maclay: Secretary of State for Scotland
- Derick Heathcoat Amory: Minister of Agriculture
- Iain Macleod: Minister of Labour and National Service
- Harold Arthur Watkinson: Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation
- Minister of Defence
- Lord Mills: Minister of Power
- Henry Brooke: Minister of Housing and Local Government and Welsh Affairs
Change
- March 1957 – Lord Home succeeds Lord Salisbury as Lord President, remaining 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.
October 1959 – July 1960
- Harold Macmillan: Prime Minister
- Lord Kilmuir: Lord Chancellor
- Lord Home: Lord President of the Council and Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations
- Lord Hailsham: Lord Privy Seal and Minister of Science
- Derick Heathcoat Amory: Chancellor of the Exchequer
- Secretary of State for the Home Department
- Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
- Iain Macleod: Secretary of State for the Colonies
- Reginald Maudling: President of the Board of Trade
- Charles Hill: Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
- Sir David Eccles: Minister of Education
- Lord Mills: Chief Secretary to the Treasury
- Ernest Marples: Minister of Transport
- Minister of Aviation
- Minister of Defence
- John Scott Maclay: Secretary of State for Scotland
- Edward Heath: Minister of Labour and National Service
- John Hare: Minister of Agriculture
- Minister of Housing and Local Government and Welsh Affairs
July 1960 – October 1961
- Harold Macmillan: Prime Minister
- Lord Kilmuir: Lord Chancellor
- Lord Hailsham: Lord President of the Council and Minister of Science
- Edward Heath: Lord Privy Seal
- Selwyn Lloyd: Chancellor of the Exchequer
- Secretary of State for the Home Department
- Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
- Iain Macleod: Secretary of State for the Colonies
- Duncan Edwin Sandys: Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations
- Reginald Maudling: President of the Board of Trade
- Charles Hill: Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
- Sir David Eccles: Minister of Education
- Lord Hailsham: Minister of Science
- Lord Mills: Chief Secretary to the Treasury
- Ernest Marples: Minister of Transport
- Peter Thorneycroft: Minister of Aviation
- Minister of Defence
- John Scott Maclay: Secretary of State for Scotland
- John Hare: Minister of Labour and National Service
- Christopher Soames: Minister of Agriculture
- Henry Brooke: Minister of Housing and Local Government and Welsh Affairs
October 1961 – July 1962
- Harold Macmillan: Prime Minister
- Lord Kilmuir: Lord Chancellor
- Lord Hailsham: Lord President of the Council and Minister of Science
- Edward Heath: Lord Privy Seal
- Selwyn Lloyd: Chancellor of the Exchequer
- Secretary of State for the Home Department
- Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
- Reginald Maudling: Secretary of State for the Colonies
- Duncan Edwin Sandys: Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations
- Frederick Erroll: President of the Board of Trade
- Iain Macleod: Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
- Sir David Eccles: Minister of Education
- Henry Brooke: Chief Secretary to the Treasury
- Ernest Marples: Minister of Transport
- Peter Thorneycroft: Minister of Aviation
- Minister of Defence
- John Scott Maclay: Secretary of State for Scotland
- John Hare: Minister of Labour and National Service
- Christopher Soames: Minister of Agriculture
- Charles Hill: Minister of Housing and Local Government and Welsh Affairs
- Lord Mills: Minister without Portfolio
July 1962 – October 1963
Note: In a radical reshuffle dubbed "The Night of the Long Knives", Macmillan sacked a third of his Cabinet.
- Harold Macmillan: Prime Minister
- Rab Butler: Deputy Prime Minister and First Secretary of State
- Lord Dilhorne: Lord Chancellor
- Lord Hailsham: Lord President of the Council and Minister of Science
- Edward Heath: Lord Privy Seal
- Reginald Maudling: Chancellor of the Exchequer
- Secretary of State for the Home Department
- Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
- Duncan Edwin Sandys: Secretary of State for the Colonies and Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations
- Frederick Erroll: President of the Board of Trade
- Iain Macleod: Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
- Sir Edward Boyle: Minister of Education
- John Boyd-Carpenter: Chief Secretary to the Treasury
- Ernest Marples: Minister of Transport
- Julian Amery: Minister of Aviation
- Peter Thorneycroft: Minister of Defence
- Michael Noble: Secretary of State for Scotland
- John Hare: Minister of Labour and National Service
- Christopher Soames: Minister of Agriculture
- Sir Keith Joseph: Minister of Housing and Local Government and Welsh Affairs
- Enoch Powell: Minister of Health
- William Deedes: Minister without Portfolio
Cultural depictions
Notes
References
- ^ "Harold Macmillan Dies at 92". The New York Times. 30 December 1986. Archived from the original on 29 June 2021. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
- ^ Middleton 1997, pp. 422–23.
- ^ Middleton 1997, p. 422.
- ^ Peter Hennessy, Having It So Good: Britain in the Fifties (London: Allen Lane, 2006), pp. 533–34.
- ^ a b Lamb 1995, pp. 14–15.
- ^ Leitch, David (8 December 1996), "The spy who rocked a world of privilege", The Independent, London, archived from the original on 4 August 2012
- ^ Fisher 1982, p. 2.
- ^ Horne 2008, p. 9.
- ^ Campbell 2010, p. 245.
- ^ "Winds of Change" speech, minute 29:04. "PM Harold Macmillan – Wind of Change Speech at the Cape Town Parliament – 3 February 1960". YouTube. 25 March 2016. Archived from the original on 24 November 2017. Retrieved 4 December 2017.
- ^ Horne 2008, p. 13.
- ^ Williams 2010, p. 15.
- ^ "Mr T.S. Morton". The Times. 23 January 1962.
- ^ a b Horne 1988, p. 15.
- ^ Horne 2008, p. 16.
- ^ Simon Ball, The Guardsmen, Harold Macmillan, Three Friends and the World They Made, (London, Harper Collins), 2004, p. 19.
- ^ Williams 2010, pp. 19–26.
- ^ a b c d e Thorpe 2010.
- ^ Horne 1988, p. 22.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, p. 41
- ^ Supermac.
- ^ Thorpe 2011, pp. 47–48
- ^ "No. 28979". The London Gazette (Supplement). 17 November 1914. p. 9505.
- ^ "No. 29500". The London Gazette (Supplement). 7 March 1916. p. 2533.
- ^ "No. 29376". The London Gazette (Supplement). 19 November 1915. p. 11582.
- ^ MacMillan 2010, p. 89
- ISBN 0-340-50846-9
- ^ Ball Guardsmen, p. 64.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, p. 58
- ^ "Harold Macmillan". Archived from the original on 21 March 2015. Retrieved 13 June 2015. Spartacus Educational website biography.
- ^ Campbell 2010, p. 246–247.
- ^ Williams 2010, p. 31.
- ^ Horne 2008, p. 49.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, pp. 42–45; "sent down" is a university term for "expelled"
- ^ Williams 2010, p. 49.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, p. 62.
- ^ Macmillan 1966, pp. 107–108. This period saw disturbances amongst British troops in France, which was of grave worry to the Government as the Russian and German revolutions had been accompanied by army mutinies. In the end the crisis was resolved by giving priority for demobilisation to men who had served the longest.
- ^ Horne 2008, p. 52.
- ^ Williams 2010, p. 55.
- ^ "No. 31958". The London Gazette (Supplement). 29 June 1920. p. 7073. The London Gazette states that he held and retained the rank of lieutenant.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, pp. 72, 76–77, 88, 109, 118.
- ^ Horne 1989, p. 155.
- ISBN 978-1408704127.
- ISBN 978-1-4039-3990-6.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, pp. 94–100.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, p. 95. Thorpe points out that divorce still caused muttering as late as the 1950s. Walter Monckton's divorce may have cost him promotion to the highest legal positions of Lord Chief Justice and Lord Chancellor, while Anthony Eden faced criticism for divorcing and remarrying, and talk that he was unfit to make ecclesiastical appointments.
- ISBN 1-86105-152-2
- ^ Horne 1988, p. 67.
- ^ Campbell 2010, p. 248.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, 14116–14121.
- ^ Richard Allen Cave, O'Casey, Sean (1880–1964) Archived 8 November 2021 at the Wayback Machine, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2008. Retrieved 19 November 2011.
- ^ Garry O'Connor, 'Obituary – Eileen O'Casey', The Guardian (12 April 1995), p. 13.
- ^ Edward Marriott, 'Obituary – Eileen O'Casey', Evening Standard (London, 18 April 1995).
- ^ "Eileen O'Casey; Obituary." The Times (11 April 1995), p. 19.
- ^ Horne 1988, p. 69.
- ^ a b c Campbell 2010, p. 246.
- ^ a b Fisher 1982, pp. 32–33.
- ^ a b Horne 1988, p. 243.
- ^ a b c Horne 1988, p. 103.
- ^ Horne 1988, p. 100.
- S2CID 148757056.
- ^ Campbell 2010, p. 249.
- ^ Seidman, Michael. Transatlantic Antifascisms: From the Spanish Civil War to the End of World War II. Cambridge University Press, 2017, p. 89
- ^ Horne 1988, pp. 117–118.
- ^ Horne 1988, p. 119.
- ^ Horne 1988, pp. 134–135.
- ^ Horne 1988, p. 139.
- ^ Campbell 2010, p. 252.
- ^ Fisher 1982, pp. 78–79.
- ^ Harold Macmillan, The Blast of War, 1939–45 (London: Macmillan, 1967), p. 161.
- ^ Fisher 1982, p. 82.
- ^ a b Campbell 2010, p. 254.
- ^ a b Horne 1988, pp. 151–160.
- ^ Horne 2008, p. 158.
- ^ Horne 1988, p. 160.
- ^ a b Ashton 2005, p. 697.
- ^ Horne 1988, p. 170.
- ^ Ashton 2005, pp. 697–698.
- ^ "https://twitter.com/thehistoryguy/status/1628503689890496512". Twitter.
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- ^ Horne 1988, p. 174.
- ^ Horne 1988, pp. 195–199.
- ^ Horne 1988, p. 201.
- ^ Horne 1988, p. 210.
- ^ Horne 1988, pp. 218–222.
- ^ Horne 1988, pp. 230–240.
- ^ Horne 2008, pp. 251–86.
- ^ Sir Curtis Keeble, 'Macmillan and the Soviet Union', in Richard Aldous and Sabine Lee (eds), Harold Macmillan: Aspects of a Political Life (London: Macmillan, 1999), pp. 199–200.
- ^ Ferdinand Mount (8 September 2011). "Too Obviously Cleverer". London Review of Books. 33 (17). Archived from the original on 21 January 2012. Retrieved 15 January 2012.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, pp. 234–35.
- ^ Macmillan, Tides of Fortune, p. 29.
- ^ Harold Macmillan, Tides of Fortune (London: Macmillan, 1969), pp. 28–29.
- ^ Harold Nicolson: Diaries and Letters, 1945–62. (London, Phoenix) p. 32
- ^ Campbell 2010, pp. 255–256.
- ^ Campbell 2010, pp. 256–257.
- ^ Macmillan, Tides of Fortune, p. 364.
- ^ Campbell 2010, pp. 257–258.
- ^ Campbell 2010, p. 259.
- ^ Fisher 1982, p. 139.
- ^ "The Housing Total Was 318,779". Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail. 5 February 1954. Retrieved 8 March 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
- ^ Fisher 1982, p. 143.
- ^ The Economist (16 April 1955).
- ^ Fisher 1982, pp. 144–145.
- ^ Fisher 1982, p. 145.
- ^ Horne 1988, pp. 353–354.
- ^ Horne 1988, p. 155.
- ^ Horne 1989, pp. 244–245.
- ^ Campbell 2010, pp. 249, 254.
- ^ Horne 1989, p. 122.
- ^ a b Fisher 1982, p. 150.
- ^ Edmund Dell, The Chancellors: A History of the Chancellors of the Exchequer, 1945–90 (1997) pp. 207–222, covers his term as Chancellor.
- ^ Campbell 2010, pp. 261–262, 264.
- ^ Campbell 2010, pp. 264–265.
- ^ 18 April 1956: Macmillan unveils premium bond scheme Archived 6 January 2017 at the Wayback Machine, BBC News, 'On This Day 1950–2005'.
- ^ Horne 2008, p. 383.
- ^ John Major (1999). John Major: The Autobiography. HarperCollins. p. 26.
- ^ Harold Macmillan; Unflappable master of the middle way Archived 19 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine, obituary in The Guardian, by Vernon Bogdanor; 30 December 1986
- ^ Horne 2008, p. 441.
- ^ Bertjan Verbeek, Decision-making in Great Britain during the Suez crisis (2003) p. 95
- ^ Campbell 2010, p. 265.
- ^ Beckett 2006, p. 74.
- ^ Toye, Richard Churchill's Empire: The World That Made Him and the World He Made (2010) p. 304
- ^ Beckett 2006, pp. 73–74.
- ^ a b Diane B. Kunz, The Economic Diplomacy of the Suez Crisis (1991) pp. 130–40
- ^ Howard 1987, p. 237.
- ^ Williams 2010, p. 267.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, p. 356.
- ^ Howard 1987, p. 239.
- ^ Howard 1987, p. 242.
- Staff Secretary Andrew Goodpaster. It is unclear whether there was direct pressure from the US Administration for Macmillan to be chosen, or rather whether being the candidate best placed to rebuild bridges with the Americans was simply another reason why leading Conservatives preferred him to Butler. Published accounts do not agree about the date of the meeting. Williams (2010, p. 270) lists it as happening on 20 November, a date repeated in Michael Jago's 2015 biography of Rab Butler. Macmillan's other recent biographer D. R. Thorpe gives it as 24 December, presumably an error as the footnote refers to Eisenhower's papers for November 1956, while in his biography of Anthony Eden (2003, p. 539) Thorpe gives it as 24 November.
- ^ Howard 1987, pp. 240–241.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, pp. 353–354.
- ^ Campbell 2010, p. 269.
- ^ Howard 1987, p. 244.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, p. 358.
- ^ Beckett 2006, pp. 77–78.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, pp. 361–362.
- ^ Harold Macmillan, The Macmillan Diaries, The Cabinet Years, 1950–1957, ed. Peter Catterall (London: Macmillan, 2003).
- ^ a b Horne 1989, pp. 5, 13.
- ^ David Butler, Twentieth Century British Political Facts 1900–2000, Macmillan, 8th edition, 2000.
- ^ Gyles Brandreth. Brief encounters: meetings with remarkable people (2001) p. 214
- ^ a b c Goodlad & Pearce, 2013 p.169
- ^ a b c d e f g h Goodlad & Pearce, 2013 p.170
- ^ Colin Seymour-Ure, Prime Ministers and the Media: issues of power and control (2003) p. 261
- ^ Edmund Dell, The Chancellors: A History of the Chancellors of the Exchequer, 1945–90 (1997) pp. 223–303.
- ^ a b Thorpe 2010, pp. 401–407.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, p. 407.
- ^ David Kynaston, Till Time's Last Stand: A History of The Bank of England, 1694–2013, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017, pp. 434–435.
- ^ OCR A Level History B: The End of Consensus: Britain 1945–90 by Pearson Education
- ISBN 9781861342119. Archivedfrom the original on 8 November 2021. Retrieved 18 October 2013.
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- ^ Mastering Modern World History by Norman Lowe
- ^ Fisher 1982, p. 214.
- ^ Fisher 1982, p. 193.
- ^ Horne, Macmillan, Volume II, pp. 94–95.
- ^ Horne, Macmillan, Volume II, p. 419.
- S2CID 154044321. Retrieved 14 March 2023.
- ^ Nick Rufford, 'A-bomb links kept secret from Queen', Sunday Times (3 January 1988).
- ^ 'Windscale: Britain's Biggest Nuclear Disaster', broadcast on Monday, 8 October 2007, at 2100 BST on BBC Two.
- ^ Paddy Shennan, 'Britain's Biggest Nuclear Disaster', Liverpool Echo (13 October 2007), p. 26.
- ^ John Hunt. 'Cabinet Papers For 1957: Windscale Fire Danger Disclosed', Financial Times (2 January 1988).
- ^ David Walker, 'Focus on 1957: Macmillan ordered Windscale censorship', The Times (1 January 1988).
- ^ Jean McSorley, 'Contaminated evidence: The secrecy and political cover-ups that followed the fire in a British nuclear reactor 50 years ago still resonate in public concerns', The Guardian (10 October 2007), p. 8.
- ^ John Gray, 'Accident disclosures bring calls for review of U.K. secrecy laws', Globe and Mail (Toronto, 4 January 1988).
- ^ Richard Gott, 'The Evolution of the Independent British Deterrent', International Affairs, 39/2 (April 1963), p. 246.
- ^ Gott, 'Independent British Deterrent', p. 247.
- ^ The Times (4 July US Navy).
- ^ Ashton 2005, p. 699.
- ^ Ashton 2005, pp. 699–700.
- ^ Ashton 2005, p. 700.
- ^ Ashton 2005, p. 702.
- ^ Ashton 2005, p. 703.
- ^ Harold Macmillan, Speech in Bedford, 20 July 1957, BBC News, 20 July 1974, archived from the original on 3 October 2010, retrieved 31 January 2010
- ^ Lamb 1995, p. 62.
- ^ "1959: Macmillan wins Tory hat trick". 5 April 2005. Archived from the original on 22 April 2009 – via news.bbc.co.uk.
- ^ a b "Cabinet Papers – Strained consensus and Labour". Nationalarchives.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 10 October 2017. Retrieved 21 October 2017.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, p. 518.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, p. 520.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, p. 524.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, p. 525.
- ^ Garry Keenor. "The Reshaping of British Railways – Part 1: Report". The Railways Archive. Archived from the original on 19 October 2010. Retrieved 25 July 2010.
- ^ Campbell 2010, p. 275.
- ^ Ashton 2005, pp. 703–704.
- ^ a b Ashton 2005, p. 704.
- ^ a b Ashton 2005, p. 705.
- ^ a b Ashton 2005, p. 707.
- ^ Ashton 2005, pp. 708–709.
- ^ a b Ashton 2005, p. 709.
- ^ a b Busch 2003, p. 20.
- ^ Ashton 2005, pp. 709–710.
- ^ Busch 2003, p. 22.
- ^ Busch 2003, p. 22-23.
- ^ Ashton 2005, p. 710.
- ^ Ashton 2005, p. 712.
- ^ Christopher Sandford, Harold and Jack: The Remarkable Friendship of Prime Minister Macmillan and President Kennedy (2014) pp. 212-213
- ^ a b c d Ashton 2005, p. 719.
- ^ a b Ashton 2005, p. 713.
- ^ a b Ashton 2005, p. 714.
- ^ a b Wright 1999, p. 10.
- ^ Larry Butler and Sarah Stockwell, eds. The wind of change: Harold Macmillan and British decolonization (Springer, 2013).
- ^ a b c d e Goodlad & Pearce, 2013 p.176
- ^ Toye, Richard Churchill's Empire: The World That Made Him and the World He Made (2010) p. 306
- ^ "Harold Macmillan begins his "winds of change" tour of Africa". South Africa History Online. Archived from the original on 8 December 2015.
- ^ a b c Subritzy 1999, p. 181.
- ^ Subritzy 1999, p. 180.
- ^ a b c Busch 2003, p. 174.
- ^ Subritzy 1999, p. 187-190.
- ^ Busch 2003, p. 176.
- ^ a b c Subritzy 1999, p. 190.
- ^ Subritzy 1999, p. 189.
- ^ Busch 2003, p. 182-183.
- ^ Subritzy 1999, p. 189-190.
- ^ Fisher 1982, p. 230.
- ^ a b c d e Goodlad & Pearce, 2013 p.178
- ^ George Wilkes, Britain's failure to enter the European community 1961–63: the enlargement negotiations and crises in European, Atlantic and Commonwealth relations (1997) [1] Archived 26 May 2016 at the Wayback Machine p. 63 online
- ^ Lamb 1995, pp. 164–65, Chapters 14 and 15.
- ^ a b Thorpe 2010, pp. 551–552.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, pp. 504–05.
- ^ a b Goodlad & Pearce, 2013 p.179
- ^ Thorpe 2010, p. 613.
- ^ "1963: Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell dies". BBC News. 21 October 1963. Archived from the original on 15 July 2015.
- ^ "1963: a year to remember". BBC Democracy Live. 28 March 2013. Archived from the original on 26 April 2016.
- ^ a b Goodlad & Pearce, 2013 p.180
- ^ SECURITY (MR. PROFUMO'S RESIGNATION) (Hansard, 17 June 1963)
- ^ "SECURITY (MR. PROFUMO'S RESIGNATION)". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). 17 June 1963. Archived from the original on 7 May 2016.
- ^ Lamb 1995, p. 488.
- ^ Campbell 2010, p. 284–285.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, pp. 558–559.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, p. 565.
- ^ Lamb 1995, p. 491.
- ^ a b Thorpe 2010, pp. 566–567.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, pp. 569–570.
- ISBN 047119431X.
- ^ the "soundings" and the accompanying political intrigues are discussed in detail in Rab Butler's biography
- ^ Anthony Bevins, 'How Supermac Was "Hounded Out of Office" by Band of 20 Opponents', The Observer (1 January 1995), p. 1.
- ^ "News: 15 October 1964". BBC News. Archived from the original on 23 February 2012.
- ^ a b c d Fletcher, Martin (31 December 1986), "'World pays tribute to Stockton – Death of former Conservative premier", The Times
- ^ Thorpe 2010, p. 587.
- ^ Richard Vinen: Thatcher's Britain. The Politics and Social Upheaval of the 1980s. (Simon & Schuster, London 2009), p. 316
- ^ Howard 1987, p. 353.
- ^ Campbell 2010, p. 266.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, p. 605.
- ^ 'The Wit and Wisdom Inside No 10', Daily Express (27 March 2008), p. 13.
- ^ "No. 46872". The London Gazette. 9 September 1976. p. 5299.
- ^ a b Fisher 1982, pp. 359–360.
- ^ Fisher 1982, p. 355.
- ^ "1975: Tories choose first woman leader". BBC News. British Broadcasting Corporation. 11 February 1975. Archived from the original on 7 March 2008.
- ^ "1979: Election victory for Margaret Thatcher". BBC News. British Broadcasting Corporation. 4 May 1979. Archived from the original on 19 December 2007.
- ^ Fisher 1982, p. 362.
- ^ ISBN 9781847371751.
- ^ a b Apple, R. W. Jr. (14 November 1984). "Macmillan, at 90, Rouses the Lords". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 10 December 2017.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, p. 663.
- ^ Moore 2013, pp. 679–680.
- ^ ISBN 0002550490.
- ^ "No. 49660". The London Gazette. 29 February 1984. p. 2951.
- ^ "Lord Stockton has condemned Oxford University's decision not to give Mrs Thatcher an honorary degree", The Guardian, p. 28, 4 February 1985
- ISBN 0715624350.
- ^ The Earl of Stockton (14 November 1985). "New Technologies". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Vol. 468. House of Lords. col. 390–391.
- ^ Fisher 1982, pp. 361–362.
- ^ Fox, Thomas (2 April 2022). "Birch Grove: The West Sussex country house once owned by a Prime Minister where JFK stayed the night". Sussex Live. Total Sense Media. Retrieved 24 November 2023.
- Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b c Foster, Howard (6 January 1987), "'I think I will go to sleep now.' Funeral of former premier Harold Macmillan", The Times, p. 23
- ^ a b "British leaders mourn Harold Macmillan", Toronto Star, p. A10, 6 January 1987
- ^ Morgan, Kenneth (14 February 2005). "Big Jim was no one's fool". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 December 2023.
- ^ Fletcher, Martin (31 December 1986), "World pays tribute to Stockton. Death of former Conservative premier", The Times
- ^ a b c "Macmillan Funeral Held – Thatcher Attends Services", San Francisco Chronicle, p. 23, 6 January 1987
- ^ a b Johnson, Frank (13 January 1987), "Tributes to the master of timing", The Times
- ^ Memorial service for Harold Macmillan, First Earl of Stockton, O.M., P.C.: Tuesday 10 February 1987 12, noon (London: Westminster Abbey, 1987).
- ^ UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
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- ^ "Macmillan & Eisenhower – British Pathé". Uk.news.yahoo.com. Archived from the original on 4 January 2017. Retrieved 21 October 2017.
- ^ "Getty Images". Itnsource.com. Archived from the original on 4 January 2017. Retrieved 21 October 2017.
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- ^ Fisher 1982, p. 364.
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- ^ Fisher 1982, p. 367.
- ^ John Vincent, "Macmillan, Harold" in Fred M. Leventhal, ed., Twentieth-century Britain: an encyclopedia (Garland, 1995) p. 488.
- ^ Horne 1989, p. 214.
- ^ Campbell 2010, p. 292.
- ^ Thorpe 2010, pp. 614–17.
Cited texts
- .
- ISBN 978-1-904950-66-0.
- Busch, Peter (2003). All the Way with JFK? Britain, the US, and the Vietnam War. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199256396.
- ISBN 978-1-845-95091-0. (contains an essay on Macmillan and Butler)
- Dell, Edmund. The Chancellors: A History of the Chancellors of the Exchequer, 1945–90 (HarperCollins, 1997) pp. 207–222, covers his term as Chancellor.
- ISBN 978-0-297-77914-8.
- Goodlad, Graham; Pearce, Robert (2013). British Prime Ministers From Balfour to Brown. London: ISBN 9780415669832.
- ISBN 978-0-333-27691-4.
- ISBN 978-0-333-49621-3.
- ISBN 978-0-230-71083-2.
- ISBN 978-0-224-01862-3.
- Lamb, Richard (1995). The Macmillan Years 1957–63: The Emerging Truth. London: Murray. ISBN 978-0-719-55392-9.
- Middleton, Roger (1997) [1996]. Government Versus the Market: Growth of the Public Sector, Economic Management and British Economic Performance, 1890–1979 (New ed.). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. ISBN 978-1-85898-371-4.
- Moore, Charles(2013). Margaret Thatcher: From Grantham to the Falklands.
- Sandbrook, Dominic (2005). Never Had It So Good. London: Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0-349-11530-6.
- Subritzy, John (1999). "Macmillan and East of Suez: the Case of Malaysia". In Lee, Richard (ed.). Macmillan: Aspects of a Political Life. London: Macmillan. pp. 177–194. ISBN 9780230376892.
- ISBN 978-1-844-13541-7.
- Theatre Record (1997 for Hugh Whitemore's A Letter of Resignation; 2008 for Howard Brenton's Never So Good)
- ISBN 978-0-753-82702-4.
- Wright, Oliver (1999). "Macmillan: A View from the Foreign Office". In Lee, Richard (ed.). Macmillan: Aspects of a Political Life. London: Macmillan. pp. 6–15. ISBN 9780230376892.
Further reading
- Aldous, Richard, and Sabine Lee, eds. Harold Macmillan and Britain’s world role (Springer, 2016).
- Ball, Simon. The Guardsmen: Harold Macmillan, Three Friends and the World They Made (Harper Perennial, London 2005). ISBN 978-0-00-653163-0
- Betts, Lewis David. "Harold Macmillan and appeasement: implications for the future study of Macmillan as a foreign policy actor." Contemporary British History 32.2 (2018): 169–189.
- Butler, Larry, and Sarah Stockwell, eds. The Wind of Change: Harold Macmillan and British Decolonization (Springer, 2013).
- ISBN 978-0-00-743585-2
- Edmonds, Anthony O. and E. Bruce Geelhoed, Eisenhower, Macmillan and Allied Unity 1957–61, Basingstoke, UK: ISBN 0-333-64227-9.
- Evans, Brendan. "The oratory of Harold Macmillan", in Conservative Orators from Baldwin to Cameron (Manchester University Press, 2016).
- Grant, Matthew. "Historians, the Penguin Specials and the 'State-of-the-Nation' Literature, 1958–64." Contemporary British History (2003) 17#3 pp29–54, focus on decline of Britain.
- ISBN 978-0-14-100409-9.
- Hodge, Alan. "The Macmillan Years", History Today (December 1963), 13#12 pp. 848–851, covers 1931 to 1963.
- ISBN 978-0-04-923013-2
- Hutchinson, George. The Last Edwardian at No.10: An Impression of Harold Macmillan, Quartet Books, London 1980. ISBN 978-0-7043-2232-5.
- James, Elizabeth. Macmillan A Publishing Tradition, London, 2002. ISBN 0-333-73517-X
- Merk, Dorothea, and Rüdiger Ahrens. "'Suspicious Federal Chancellor' Versus 'Weak Prime Minister': Konrad Adenauer and Harold Macmillan in the British and West German Quality Press during the Berlin Crisis (1958 to 1962). A Critical Discourse Analysis", in Europe in Discourse: Identity, Diversity, Borders (2016) pp. 101–116 online[dead link]
- Ovendale, Ritchie. "Macmillan and the wind of change in Africa, 1957–1960", Historical Journal (1995) 38#2, pp. 455–477.
- Rooke, Patrick J. The Wind of Change in Africa (1968) online
- Sampson, Anthony. Macmillan: A Study in Ambiguity (A&C Black, 2012).
- Sandford, Christopher. Harold and Jack: The Remarkable Friendship of Prime Minister Macmillan and President Kennedy (Prometheus Books, 2014)
- Tolstoy, Nikolai. ISBN 0-09-164010-5
- Torreggiani, Valerio. "The Making of Harold Macmillan's Third Way in Interwar Britain (1924–1935)", in New Political Ideas in the Aftermath of the Great War (Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2017) pp. 67–85.
- Turner, John (1994). Macmillan (Profiles In Power). London: Longman. ISBN 978-0-582-55386-6.
- Britannica Online about Harold Macmillan
Primary sources
- Macmillan, Harold. The Macmillan Diaries: vol II, Prime Minister and after 1957–1966 (Pan, 2011).
External links
- Annotated Bibliography for Harold Macmillan from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues Archived 4 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Harold Macmillan
- BBC Harold Macmillan obituary
- President of the friends of Roquetaillade association [2]
- 8 June 1958 speech on "Interdependence" at DePauw University
- More about Harold Macmillan on the Downing Street website
- 1968 – Britain's Harold Macmillan Makes Return Visit to DePauw, Calls for New Rapprochement Archived 15 November 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- RootsAndLeaves.com, Cavendish family genealogy
- Bodleian Library Suez Crisis Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition
- Portraits of Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton at the National Portrait Gallery, London
- "Archival material relating to Harold Macmillan". UK National Archives.
- Newspaper clippings about Harold Macmillan in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW