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Sir Alec Douglas Home

The Right Honourable
The Lord Home of the Hirsel
KT PC
head and shoulders image of clean shaven, slim, balding man of middle age
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In office
19 October 1963 – 16 October 1964
Monarch Elizabeth II
Preceded by Harold Macmillan
Succeeded by Harold Wilson
Foreign Secretary
In office
20 June 1970 – 4 March 1974
Prime Minister Edward Heath
Preceded by Michael Stewart
Succeeded by James Callaghan
In office
27 July 1960 – 18 October 1963
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan
Preceded by Selwyn Lloyd
Succeeded by Rab Butler
Shadow Foreign Secretary
In office
13 April 1966 – 18 June 1970
Leader Edward Heath
Preceded by Christopher Soames
Succeeded by Denis Healey
Leader of the Opposition
In office
16 October 1964 – 28 July 1965
Monarch Elizabeth II
Prime Minister Harold Wilson
Preceded by Harold Wilson
Succeeded by Edward Heath
Member of Parliament
for Kinross and Western Perthshire
In office
7 November 1963 – 10 October 1974
Preceded by Gilmour Leburn
Succeeded by Nicholas Fairbairn
Leader of the Conservative Party
In office
18 October 1963 – 28 July 1965
Preceded by Harold Macmillan
Succeeded by Edward Heath
Lord President of the Council
In office
14 October 1959 – 27 July 1960
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan
Preceded by The Viscount Hailsham
Succeeded by The Viscount Hailsham
In office
29 March 1957 – 17 September 1957
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan
Preceded by The Marquess of Salisbury
Succeeded by The Viscount Hailsham
Leader of the House of Lords
In office
29 March 1957 – 27 July 1960
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan
Preceded by The Marquess of Salisbury
Succeeded by The Viscount Hailsham
Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations
In office
7 April 1955 – 27 July 1960
Prime Minister
Preceded by The Viscount Swinton
Succeeded by Duncan Sandys
Member of Parliament
for Lanark
In office
23 February 1950 – 25 October 1951
Preceded by Tom Steele
Succeeded by Patrick Maitland
In office
27 October 1931 – 5 July 1945
Preceded by Thomas Scott Dickson
Succeeded by Tom Steele
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
In office
24 December 1974 – 9 October 1995
Life Peerage
In office
11 July 1951 – 23 October 1963
Hereditary Peerage
Preceded by Charles Douglas-Home
Succeeded by David Douglas-Home (1995)
Personal details
Born Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home
(1903-07-02)2 July 1903
Mayfair, London, England
Died 9 October 1995(1995-10-09) (aged 92)
Coldstream, Scotland
Political party Conservative
Other political
affiliations
Unionist
Spouse(s) Elizabeth Alington (m. 1936; d. 1990)
Children
  • Caroline
  • Meriel
  • Diana
  • David
Alma mater Christ Church, Oxford

Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel, KT, PC (Listeni/ˈhjuːm/; 2 July 1903 – 9 October 1995) was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister from 19 October 1963 to 16 October 1964. He is notable for being the last 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 the UK's foreign secretary than on his brief premiership.

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, 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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