Alex Douglas-Home
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The Right Honourable The Lord Home of the Hirsel KT PC |
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| Prime Minister of the United Kingdom | |
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In office 19 October 1963 – 16 October 1964 |
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| Monarch | Elizabeth II |
| Preceded by | Harold Macmillan |
| Succeeded by | Harold Wilson |
| Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs | |
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In office 20 June 1970 – 4 March 1974 |
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| Prime Minister | Edward Heath |
| Preceded by | Michael Stewart |
| Succeeded by | James Callaghan |
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In office 27 July 1960 – 18 October 1963 Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs |
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| Prime Minister | Harold Macmillan |
| Preceded by | Selwyn Lloyd |
| Succeeded by | Rab Butler |
| Shadow Foreign Secretary | |
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In office 13 April 1966 – 18 June 1970 |
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| Leader | Edward Heath |
| Preceded by | Christopher Soames |
| Succeeded by | Denis Healey |
| Leader of the Opposition | |
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In office 16 October 1964 – 28 July 1965 |
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| Monarch | Elizabeth II |
| Prime Minister | Harold Wilson |
| Preceded by | Harold Wilson |
| Succeeded by | Edward Heath |
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Member of Parliament for Kinross and Western Perthshire |
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In office 7 November 1963 – 10 October 1974 |
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| Preceded by | Gilmour Leburn |
| Succeeded by | Nicholas Fairbairn |
| Leader of the Conservative Party | |
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In office 18 October 1963 – 28 July 1965 |
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| Preceded by | Harold Macmillan |
| Succeeded by | Edward Heath |
| Lord President of the Council | |
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In office 14 October 1959 – 27 July 1960 |
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| Prime Minister | Harold Macmillan |
| Preceded by | The Viscount Hailsham |
| Succeeded by | The Viscount Hailsham |
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In office 29 March 1957 – 17 September 1957 |
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| Prime Minister | Harold Macmillan |
| Preceded by | The Marquess of Salisbury |
| Succeeded by | The Viscount Hailsham |
| Leader of the House of Lords | |
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In office 29 March 1957 – 27 July 1960 |
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| Prime Minister | Harold Macmillan |
| Preceded by | The Marquess of Salisbury |
| Succeeded by | The Viscount Hailsham |
| Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations | |
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In office 7 April 1955 – 27 July 1960 |
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| Prime Minister |
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| Preceded by | The Viscount Swinton |
| Succeeded by | Duncan Sandys |
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Member of Parliament for Lanark |
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In office 23 February 1950 – 25 October 1951 |
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| Preceded by | Tom Steele |
| Succeeded by | Patrick Maitland |
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In office 27 October 1931 – 5 July 1945 |
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| Preceded by | Thomas Scott Dickson |
| Succeeded by | Tom Steele |
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Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal |
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In office 24 December 1974 – 9 October 1995 Life Peerage |
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In office 11 July 1951 – 23 October 1963 Hereditary Peerage |
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| Preceded by | Charles Douglas-Home |
| Succeeded by | David Douglas-Home (1995) |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home 2 July 1903 Mayfair, London, England |
| Died | 9 October 1995 (aged 92) Coldstream, Scotland |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Other political affiliations |
Unionist |
| Spouse(s) | Elizabeth Alington (m. 1936; d. 1990) |
| Children |
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| Parents |
Charles Douglas-Home, 13th Earl of Home Lady Lillian Lambton |
| Alma mater | Christ Church, Oxford |
Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel, KT, PC (/ˈhjuːm/ (
listen); 2 July 1903 – 9 October 1995), was a British statesman of the Conservative Party who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1963 to October 1964. He is notable for being the most recent Prime Minister to hold office while being a member of the House of Lords, before renouncing his peerage and taking up a seat in the House of Commons for the remainder of his premiership. His reputation, however, rests more on his two spells as Britain's foreign secretary than on his brief premiership.
The eldest child of Charles Douglas-Home, the then-Lord Dunglass, who was himself the eldest son of the 12th Earl of Home, Alec Douglas-Home was educated at Ludgrove School and Eton College, then receiving a Bachelor of Arts in modern history from Christ Church, Oxford in 1925. A talented cricketer, he played first-class cricket at school, club and county level and began serving in the Territorial Army from 1924. Within six years of first entering the House of Commons in 1931, Douglas-Home (then called by the courtesy title Lord Dunglass) became parliamentary aide to Neville Chamberlain, witnessing at first hand Chamberlain's efforts as Prime Minister to preserve peace through appeasement in the two years before the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1940, he was diagnosed with spinal tuberculosis and was immobilised for two years. By the later stages of the war he had recovered enough to resume his political career, but lost his seat in the general election of 1945. He regained it in 1950, but the following year he left the Commons when, on the death of his father, he inherited the earldom of Home and thereby became a member of the House of Lords as the 14th Earl of Home. Under the premierships of Winston Churchill, Sir Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan he was appointed to a series of increasingly senior posts, including Leader of the House of Lords and Foreign Secretary. In the latter post, which he held from 1960 to 1963, he supported United States resolve in the Cuban Missile Crisis and was the United Kingdom's signatory of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in August 1963.
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