Harold Macmillan

The Right Honourable The Earl of Stockton OM PC FRS
Official portrait, 1959
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In office 10 January 1957 – 18 October 1963
Monarch	Elizabeth II
First Secretary	Rab Butler (1962–63)
Preceded by	Anthony Eden
Succeeded by	Alec Douglas-Home
Leader of the Conservative Party
In office 10 January 1957 – 18 October 1963
Preceded by	Anthony Eden
Succeeded by	Alec Douglas-Home
Ministerial offices Chancellor of the Exchequer In office 20 December 1955 – 13 January 1957 Prime Minister Anthony Eden Preceded by Rab Butler Succeeded by Peter Thorneycroft Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs In office 7 April 1955 – 20 December 1955 Prime Minister Anthony Eden Preceded by Anthony Eden Succeeded by Selwyn Lloyd Minister of Defence In office 19 October 1954 – 7 April 1955 Prime Minister Winston Churchill Preceded by The Earl Alexander of Tunis Succeeded by Selwyn Lloyd Minister of Housing and Local Government In office 30 October 1951 – 19 October 1954 Prime Minister Winston Churchill Preceded by Hugh Dalton Succeeded by Duncan Sandys Secretary of State for Air In office 25 May 1945 – 26 July 1945 Prime Minister Winston Churchill Preceded by Archibald Sinclair Succeeded by The Viscount Stansgate Minister Resident in Northwest Africa In office 30 December 1942 – 25 May 1945 Prime Minister Winston Churchill Preceded by Office established Succeeded by Harold Balfour Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies In office 4 February 1942 – 30 December 1942 Prime Minister Winston Churchill Preceded by George Hall Succeeded by The Duke of Devonshire Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply In office 15 May 1940 – 4 February 1942 Prime Minister Winston Churchill Preceded by John Llewellin Succeeded by The Viscount Portal
Parliamentary offices Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal Hereditary peerage 24 February 1984 – 29 December 1986 Succeeded by The 2nd Earl of Stockton Member of Parliament for Bromley In office 14 November 1945 – 25 September 1964 Preceded by Edward Campbell Succeeded by John Hunt Member of Parliament for Stockton-on-Tees In office 27 October 1931 – 15 June 1945 Preceded by Frederick Fox Riley Succeeded by George Chetwynd In office 29 October 1924 – 10 May 1929 Preceded by Robert Strother Stewart Succeeded by Frederick Fox Riley
Academic offices Chancellor of the University of Oxford In office 3 March 1960 – 18 December 1986 Preceded by Edward Wood Succeeded by Roy Jenkins
Personal details
Born	Maurice Harold Macmillan (1894-02-10)10 February 1894 London, England
Died	29 December 1986(1986-12-29) (aged 92) Horsted Keynes, West Sussex, England
Resting place	St Giles' Church, Horsted Keynes, West Sussex, England
Political party	Conservative
Spouse	Lady Dorothy Cavendish ​ ​ (m. 1920; died 1966)​
Children	4, including Maurice and Caroline
Alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford
Occupation	Publisher politician
Civilian awards	Order of Merit (1976) Peerage (1984)
Signature
Military service
Branch/service	British Army
Years of service	1914–1920
Rank	Captain
Unit	Grenadier Guards
Battles/wars	First World War Battle of Loos Battle of the Somme
Military awards	Victory Medal British War Medal

Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC, FRS (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963.^[1] Nicknamed "Supermac", he was known for his pragmatism, wit, and unflappability.

Macmillan was badly injured as an infantry officer during the First World War. He suffered pain and partial immobility for the rest of his life. After the war he joined his family book-publishing business, then entered Parliament at the 1924 general election. Losing his seat in 1929, he regained it in 1931, soon after which he spoke out against the high rate of unemployment in Stockton-on-Tees. He opposed the appeasement of Germany practised by the Conservative government. He rose to high office during the Second World War as a protégé of Prime Minister Winston Churchill. In the 1950s Macmillan served as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer under Anthony Eden.

When Eden resigned in 1957 following the Suez Crisis, Macmillan succeeded him as prime minister and Leader of the Conservative Party. He was a One Nation Tory of the Disraelian tradition and supported the post-war consensus. He supported the welfare state and the necessity of a mixed economy with some nationalised industries and strong trade unions. He championed a Keynesian strategy of deficit spending to maintain demand and pursuit of corporatist policies to develop the domestic market as the engine of growth. Benefiting from favourable international conditions,^[2] he presided over an age of affluence, marked by low unemployment and high—if uneven—growth. In his speech of July 1957 he told the nation it had 'never had it so good',^[3] but warned of the dangers of inflation, summing up the fragile prosperity of the 1950s.^[4] He led the Conservatives to success in 1959 with an increased majority.

In international affairs, Macmillan worked to rebuild the Special Relationship with the United States from the wreckage of the 1956 Suez Crisis (of which he had been one of the architects), and facilitated the decolonisation of Africa. Reconfiguring the nation's defences to meet the realities of the nuclear age, he ended National Service, strengthened the nuclear forces by acquiring Polaris, and pioneered the Nuclear Test Ban with the United States and the Soviet Union. After the Skybolt Crisis undermined the Anglo-American strategic relationship, he sought a more active role for Britain in Europe, but his unwillingness to disclose United States nuclear secrets to France contributed to a French veto of the United Kingdom's entry into the European Economic Community.^[5] Near the end of his premiership, his government was rocked by the Vassall and Profumo scandals, which to cultural conservatives and supporters of opposing parties alike seemed to symbolise moral decay of the British establishment.^[6] Following his resignation, Macmillan lived out a long retirement as an elder statesman, being an active member of the House of Lords in his final years. He died in December 1986 at the age of 92.