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Portrait of Alec Douglas-Home

Prime Ministers · 20th century

Alec Douglas-Home

1903–1995 · British (Scottish)

Conservative

In office: 1963–1964

Sir Alec Douglas-Home succeeded Harold Macmillan in October 1963 while he was still the 14th Earl of Home, renouncing his peerage to sit in the Commons. His premiership lasted just under a year before Labour under Harold Wilson narrowly won the 1964 general election. He later served again as Foreign Secretary under Edward Heath and returned to the Lords as Lord Home of the Hirsel.

How to spot them

  • ▸The 14th Earl of Home who disclaimed his title to become PM
  • ▸Emerged from the Conservative 'magic circle' after Macmillan resigned in 1963
  • ▸The only prime minister to have played first-class cricket
  • ▸Retorted that Harold Wilson was presumably 'the fourteenth Mr Wilson'

In office

Disclaiming an earldom under the Peerage Act 1963 to lead from the Commons (1963)

Renounced the earldom of Home and won the Kinross and West Perthshire by-election

Succession from Macmillan via the Tory 'magic circle' (1963)

Chosen through informal soundings rather than a ballot, to the fury of Iain Macleod and Enoch Powell, who refused to serve

Resale Prices Act 1964 (1964)

Abolished resale price maintenance, pushed through by Edward Heath at the Board of Trade

Economics 'with the help of a box of matches' (1962)

His self-deprecating remark about working out economic problems with matchsticks, used against him by Labour

Narrow 1964 election defeat ending 13 years of Conservative rule (1964)

Labour won with a majority of just four seats

Key ideas

  • The controversy over his selection led the Conservatives to introduce elected leadership contests in 1965
  • Seen as the last aristocratic prime minister of the old style

Quick-fire facts

  • •Styled Lord Dunglass as heir; he was Neville Chamberlain's parliamentary private secretary and went with him to Munich in 1938
  • •For a few weeks in 1963 he was prime minister while a member of neither House of Parliament
  • •Played first-class cricket for Middlesex, Oxford University and MCC
  • •Foreign Secretary twice: 1960–1963 under Macmillan and 1970–1974 under Heath
  • •Created a life peer as Baron Home of the Hirsel in 1974
  • •His brother William Douglas-Home was a playwright (The Chiltern Hundreds)
  • •Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford

Drill it — 6 cards

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Sources