John Major

Biography

John Major was born in 1943 at St Helier, Surrey, and grew up in Worcester Park until his father's failing business forced the family to sell their home. He left Rutlish School before he was sixteen, worked as an insurance clerk and joined the Young Conservatives in 1959. He was elected to Lambeth Borough Council in 1968 and entered Parliament for Huntingdonshire, later Huntingdon, at the 1979 general election.

Under Margaret Thatcher he rose quickly from junior posts to Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 1987, Foreign Secretary in 1989 and Chancellor of the Exchequer later that year. When Thatcher was challenged in November 1990 he entered the leadership contest and won it, becoming prime minister.

His government took Britain through the Gulf War, replaced the poll tax with the council tax, introduced the Citizen's Charter and privatised the railways and coal industry. He won the 1992 general election with over fourteen million votes, but months later sterling was forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism on Black Wednesday, and the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty split his party. With Albert Reynolds he issued the 1993 Downing Street Declaration, a foundation of the Northern Ireland peace process.

He resigned the party leadership in 1995 to face down his critics and won the resulting contest, but Labour under Tony Blair defeated the Conservatives in a landslide in 1997. Major stayed on as an MP until 2001 and has since worked in business and charity. He was made a Companion of Honour in 1999 and a Knight of the Garter in 2005.