Harold Macmillan, the grandson of
Daniel
Macmillan, the publisher, was born in 1894. Educated at
Eton and
Balliol College,
Oxford.
On the outbreak of the
First World War,
Macmillan left university and joined the Grenadier Guards. He served on the
Western Front
where he was wounded three times.
After the
Armistice, Macmillan joined the family publishing company but in the
1924 General
Election he became the
Conservative MP for Stockton-on-Tees. Defeated in the
1929 General
Election he returned in to the
House of Commons
in 1931.
Macmillan was a strong believer in social reform and his left-wing views
were unpopular with the
Conservative Party leadership. Macmillan was also highly critical of the
foreign policies of
Stanley Baldwin
and Neville
Chamberlain and remained a backbencher until in 1940
Winston
Churchill invited him to join the government as parliamentary secretary
to the ministry of supply. In 1942 Macmillan was sent to North Africa where
he filled the new cabinet post as minister at Allied Headquarters.
Harold Macmillan was defeated in the
1945 General
Election but returned to the
House of Commons
later that year in a by-election at Bromley. After the
1951 General
Election,
Winston Churchill appointed Macmillan as his Minister of Housing.
Macmillan was seen as one of the major successes in Churchill's government
and received praise for achieving his promised target of 300,000 new houses
a year. This was followed by a series of senior posts in the government:
Minister of Defence (October, 1954 to April, 1955), Foreign Secretary (April,
1955 to December, 1955) and Chancellor of the Exchequer (December, 1955 to
January 1957).
When Anthony Eden
resigned in 1957, Macmillan became Britain's new prime minister. He
successfully won the
1959 General
Election and at first the government enjoyed an economic boom and stable
prices. In foreign affairs, Macmillan strengthen Anglo-American
collaboration and made attempts to join the European Economic Community.
Macmillan's tradition as a social reformer was reflected in his "wind of
change" speech at Cape Town in 1960 where he acknowledged the inevitability
of African independence. The introduction of the system of life peerages to
the House of Lords
and the creation of the National Economic Development Council in 1961 were
other examples of unlikely
Conservative measures. In October, 1963, ill-health forced Macmillan to
resign from office.
After his retirement, Macmillan wrote Winds of
Change
(1966),
The Blast of War (1967),
Tides of Fortune (1969),
Riding the Storm (1971) and
At the End of the Day (1972). Granted the
title Earl of Stockton, Harold Macmillan died in 1986.
(1)
Harold Macmillan,
speech in the
House of Commons
(31st July 1961)
Therefore, after
long and earnest consideration, Her Majesty's Government have come to the
conclusion that it would be right for Britain to make a formal application
under Article 237 of the Treaty for negotiations with a view to joining the
Community if satisfactory arrangements can be made to meet the special needs
of the United Kingdom, of the Commonwealth and of the European Free Trade
Association.
If, as I earnestly
hope, our offer to enter into negotiations with the European Economic
Community is accepted, we shall spare no efforts to reach a satisfactory
agreement. These negotiations must inevitably be of a detailed and technical
character, covering a very large number of the most delicate and difficult
matters. They may, therefore, be protracted and there can, of course, be no
guarantee of success. When any negotiations are brought to a conclusion then
it will be the duty of the Government to recommend to the House what course
we should pursue.
John
Simkin
