Douglas-Home, Sir Alec

(1903–95)

   Born into the Scottish aristocracy, Alec Home became a Member of Parliament in 1931 and soon achieved minor office. He lost his Lanark seat in 1945, regained it five years later but within a year had inherited his father’s title to become the 14th Earl of Home. He served the Conservatives in the House of Lords, before being elevated to the position of Foreign Secretary in the Macmillan Government in 1960. On Macmillan’s resignation in October 1963, the vacant party leadership and premiership was to be filled via a process of ‘soundings’ among the party’s elder statesmen (later dubbed ‘the magic circle’). Senior figures including Macmillan suggested Home, who had emerged as a possible compromise candidate. The Queen invited him to become Prime Minister and Home took advantage of the recently passed Peerage Act to renounce his title and become Sir Alec Douglas-Home. He won a by-election and thereby entered the history books as the only Prime Minister to resign as a peer to re-enter the Commons. His renunciation of the title illustrated an acceptance that it would be impractical for anyone to serve as Prime Minister whilst sitting in the House of Lords.

   He was only briefly Prime Minister, serving at a time when the Conservatives had been damaged by a series of problems and scandals. The party narrowly lost the 1964 general election, Home staying on for a few months in order to set a new method of selecting the leader in motion. He returned to office as Foreign Secretary in the Heath Government and following its defeat in February 1974 he retired from front-line politics and was later restored to the upper chamber as a life peer.