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Kenneth Baker, Baron Baker of Dorking

The Right Honourable
The Lord Baker of Dorking
CH PC
Kenneth Baker.jpg
Lord Temporal
Assumed office
16 June 1997
Home Secretary
In office
28 November 1990 – 10 April 1992
Prime Minister John Major
Preceded by David Waddington
Succeeded by Kenneth Clarke
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
In office
24 July 1989 – 28 November 1990
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
Preceded by Tony Newton
Succeeded by The Lord Patten of Barnes
Chairman of the Conservative Party
In office
24 July 1989 – 28 November 1990
Leader Margaret Thatcher
Preceded by Peter Brooke
Succeeded by The Lord Patten of Barnes
Secretary of State for Education and Science
In office
21 May 1986 – 24 July 1989
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
Preceded by Keith Joseph
Succeeded by John MacGregor
Secretary of State for the Environment
In office
2 September 1985 – 21 May 1986
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
Preceded by Patrick Jenkin
Succeeded by Nicholas Ridley
Member of Parliament
for Mole Valley
In office
9 June 1983 – 2 May 1997
Preceded by Constituency established
Succeeded by Paul Beresford
Member of Parliament
for St Marylebone
In office
22 October 1970 – 9 June 1983
Preceded by Quintin Hogg
Succeeded by Constituency abolished
Member of Parliament
for Acton
In office
28 March 1968 – 18 June 1970
Preceded by Bernard Floud
Succeeded by Nigel Spearing
Personal details
Born (1934-11-03) 3 November 1934 (age 82)
Newport, Monmouthshire
Political party Conservative
Alma mater Magdalen College, Oxford

Kenneth Wilfred Baker, Baron Baker of Dorking, CH, PC (born 3 November 1934) is a British politician, a former Conservative Member of Parliament and cabinet minister and a life member of the Tory Reform Group.

Born in Newport, Monmouthshire, son of a civil servant, he was educated at what was then Hampton Grammar School, a boys' voluntary aided school in west London (now Hampton School, an independent school) between 1946 and 1948, and thereafter at St Paul's School, a boys' independent school in Barnes, London and at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1958 with a BA Degree in History, and four years later with a MSc degree in International Law and Regulations. He did National Service as an army lieutenant and worked for Royal Dutch Shell before being elected as a Member of Parliament at a by-election in March 1968.

Having unsuccessfully contested Poplar in 1964 and Acton in 1966, Baker was first elected to Parliament when he won Acton at a March 1968 by-election, gaining it from Labour following the suicide of Bernard Floud. However, at the 1970 general election he was defeated by Labour's Nigel Spearing. At an ensuing by-election, held on 22 October 1970—caused by the elevation to the Lords (as a life peer) of Quintin Hogg, so that he could become Lord Chancellor after the surprise Conservative victory at the 1970 election—Baker was elected for the safe Conservative seat of St Marylebone in central London. In the parliamentary seat redistribution of the early 1980s, St Marylebone was abolished and Baker was defeated by Peter Brooke for the Conservative nomination at the nearby new safe seat of Cities of London & Westminster. However he successfully obtained nomination at Mole Valley, a safely-Conservative rural seat in Surrey, which he held until his retirement in 1997. He was succeeded there by Sir Paul Beresford.


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