Anthony Eden

Nationality

United Kingdom

Date of Birth

1897

Date of Death

1977

Political
Preference

Conservative

Robert Athony Eden was born at Windlestone Hall, County Durham into a conservative family of landed gentry. During the World War I, he volunteered for service the British Army. At the age of twenty, Eden was the youngest brigade major in the British Army. After the war, Eden studied Oriental Languages at Christ Church, Oxford. Eden became a British Conservative politician who served three periods as Foreign Secretary and then a relatively brief term as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1955 to 1957. Eden – a skilled diplomat – gained a worldwide reputation as an opponent of appeasement.

As a young Member of Parliament, he became Foreign Secretary aged 38, before resigning in protest at Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policy towards Mussolini’s government in 1938. He again held that position for most during the Second World War, and a third time in the early 1950s.

Eden was Winston Churchill’s deputy for almost 15 years. Also, during the Congress of Europe in The Hague (7 to 10 May 1948), under the chairmanship of Winston Churchill, Eden chaired most of the plenary sessions, together with Paul van Zeeland.

During Eden’s term as prime minister, the French Prime Minister Guy Mollet approached the British Government suggesting the idea of an economic and political union between France and Great Britain, however this was rejected by Eden.