Reginald Maudling

Reginald Maudling (born March 17, 1917 in London , † February 14, 1979 there ) was a British politician of the Conservative Party .

biography

During the Second World War he was private secretary to Minister of Aviation Sir Archibald Sinclair . After the end of World War II, he became an economist in the Research Department of the Conservative Party, where he worked with Iain Macleod and Enoch Powell .

His own political career began when he was elected a member of the House of Commons in the Barnet constituency in the 1950 elections .

In 1952 he was in the government of Prime Minister Winston Churchill first Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Civil Aviation and in the same year Economic Secretary to the Treasury ( Treasury ). In April 1955, Churchill's successor appointed him Prime Minister Anthony Eden as Minister of Supply.

In January 1957 he became Paymaster General in the cabinet of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and at the same time was head of the OEEC government committee for the deliberations on the European free trade area. As part of a cabinet reshuffle, he was appointed President of the Board of Trade after the general election of 1959 . When he did not succeed in joining the United Kingdom to the Common European Market of the European Economic Community (EEC) because of France's unyielding stance , he was one of the main sponsors of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) , which was founded in Stockholm on January 4, 1960 . As part of a further government reshuffle, he succeeded Iain Macleod as Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1961 and then Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lord High Treasurer in 1962 .

He retained these offices after Alec Douglas-Home succeeded Macmillan as Prime Minister in 1963 . As Chancellor of the Exchequer, he strove to achieve economic growth , but the enormous trade deficit of around 800 million pounds ultimately led to the defeat of the Conservatives in the general election in 1964.

After Douglas Home resigned as chairman of the Conservative Party, Maudling and Enoch Powell ran for his successor, but was defeated by Edward Heath in the election in the House of Commons.

In the following years he worked in the private sector. Between 1965 and 1970 he was an advisor to the entrepreneur Sir Eric Miller, who committed suicide in 1977 . In 1969 he was chairman of con man Jerome Hoffman's investment company , but resigned 17 months before the company collapsed. He was also a partner in the architectural firm of John Poulson, who was convicted of bribery in 1973 .

When Heath became Prime Minister after the general election in June 1970, Maudling was appointed Home Secretary. In 1972, however, he had to resign after his involvement in the three financial scandals involving Hoffman, Poulson and Miller became public.

After the electoral defeat of the Conservatives in 1974, however, he was foreign minister in Edward Heath's shadow cabinet until 1976 , after which he retired from the leadership position and was a backbencher in the House of Commons until his death .

Web links

• Reginald Maudling at Hansard (English)
• rulers.org (English)
• Written estate in the archives of the University of Cambridge Library (English)