Alec Douglas-Home

The Right Honourable The Lord Home of the Hirsel KT PC JP DL
Portrait, c. 1963
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
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
Leader of the Conservative Party
In office 18 October 1963 – 28 July 1965
Preceded by	Harold Macmillan
Succeeded by	Edward Heath
Ministerial offices Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs[a] 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 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 Anthony Eden Harold Macmillan Preceded by The Viscount Swinton Succeeded by Duncan Sandys Minister of State for Scotland In office 2 November 1951 – 7 April 1955 Prime Minister Winston Churchill Preceded by Office established Succeeded by Thomas Galbraith Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs In office 26 May 1945 – 26 July 1945 Serving with The Lord Lovat Prime Minister Winston Churchill Preceded by George Hall Succeeded by Hector McNeil
Parliamentary offices Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal Life peerage 24 December 1974 – 9 October 1995 Hereditary peerage 11 July 1951 – 23 October 1963 Preceded by The 13th Earl of Home Succeeded by The 15th Earl of Home (1996) Member of Parliament for Kinross and Western Perthshire In office 8 November 1963 – 20 September 1974 Preceded by Gilmour Leburn Succeeded by Nicholas Fairbairn Member of Parliament for Lanark In office 23 February 1950 – 11 July 1951 Preceded by Tom Steele Succeeded by Patrick Maitland In office 27 October 1931 – 15 June 1945 Preceded by Thomas Dickson Succeeded by Tom Steele
Personal details
Born	Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home (1903-07-02)2 July 1903 London, England
Died	9 October 1995(1995-10-09) (aged 92) Coldstream, Berwickshire, Scotland
Political party	Conservative
Other political affiliations	Unionist
Spouse	Elizabeth Alington ​ ​ (m. 1936; died 1990)​
Children	4, including David
Parent	Charles Douglas-Home (father)
Relatives	Robin and Charles Douglas-Home (nephews)
Education	Eton College Christ Church, Oxford
Signature
Military service
Branch/service	British Army
Rank	Major
Unit	Territorial Army
Commands	Lanarkshire Yeomanry
Cricket information
Batting	Right-handed
Bowling	Right-arm fast-medium
Domestic team information
Years	Team
1924–1925	Middlesex
1926	Oxford University
1926/27	MCC
Career statistics
Competition First-class Matches 10 Runs scored 147 Batting average 16.33 100s/50s 0/0 Top score 37* Balls bowled 688 Wickets 12 Bowling average 30.25 5 wickets in innings 0 10 wickets in match 0 Best bowling 3/43 Catches/stumpings 9/–
Source: Cricinfo

Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel (/ˈhjuːm/ HEWM; 2 July 1903 – 9 October 1995), known as Lord Dunglass from 1918 to 1951 and the Earl of Home from 1951 to 1963, was a British statesman and Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1963 to 1964. He was 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 stints as 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 a parliamentary aide to Neville Chamberlain, witnessing 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 Douglas-Home 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 he 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. 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 in August 1963 was the United Kingdom's signatory to the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

In October 1963 Macmillan was taken ill and resigned as prime minister. Home was chosen to succeed him. By the 1960s it had become generally considered unacceptable for a prime minister to sit in the House of Lords; Home renounced his earldom and successfully stood for election to the House of Commons. The manner of his appointment was controversial, and two of Macmillan's cabinet ministers refused to take office under him. He was criticised by the Labour Party as an aristocrat, out of touch with the problems of ordinary families, and he came over stiffly in television interviews, by contrast with the Labour leader, Harold Wilson. The Conservative Party, in power since 1951, had lost standing as a result of the Profumo affair, a 1963 sex scandal involving a defence minister, and at the time of Home's appointment as prime minister it seemed headed for heavy electoral defeat. Home's premiership was the second briefest of the twentieth century, lasting two days short of a year. Among the legislation passed under his government was the abolition of resale price maintenance, bringing costs down for the consumer against the interests of producers of food and other commodities.

After a narrow defeat in the general election of 1964, Douglas-Home resigned the leadership of his party, after having instituted a new and less secretive method of electing the party leader. From 1970 to 1974 he was in the cabinet of Edward Heath as Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; this was an expanded version of the post of Foreign Secretary, which he had held earlier. After the defeat of the Heath government in 1974, he returned to the House of Lords as a life peer, and retired from front-line politics.

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