Harold Macmillan

The Right Honourable Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC (10 February 1894–29 December 1986), nicknamed "Supermac" and "Mac the Knife", was a British Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963.

Retirement

Macmillan initially refused a peerage and retired from politics in September 1964. He did, however, accept the distinction of the Order of Merit from The Queen. After retiring, he took up the chairmanship of his family's publishing house Macmillan Publishers. Over the next twenty years he made the occasional intervention. Following Margaret Thatcher's election as leader of the Conservative Party, Macmillan was found to be intervening more often as the record of his premiership came under attack from the monetarists in the party. In one of his more memorable contributions he likened Margaret Thatcher's policy of privatisation to "selling the family silver". In 1984 he finally accepted a peerage and was created Earl of Stockton and Viscount Macmillan of Ovenden. He died at Birch Grove in Sussex in 1986 at the age of 92 years and 322 days - the greatest age attained by any British Prime Minister until it was surpassed by James Callaghan on 14 February 2005.

Related Topics:
1964 - Order of Merit - Macmillan Publishers - Margaret Thatcher - Monetarists - Privatisation - 1984 - 1986 - James Callaghan - 14 February - 2005

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