William Hague

Biography

William Hague was born in Rotherham in 1961 and attended Wath-upon-Dearne Comprehensive School; he first drew national attention by addressing the Conservative conference at the age of 16. He took a first in philosophy, politics and economics at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was president of the Oxford Union, earned an MBA at INSEAD in 1986 and worked as a management consultant at McKinsey.

He won Richmond in North Yorkshire at a by-election in 1989 and rose quickly under John Major, serving as a social security minister before joining the cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales in 1995.

After the 1997 defeat he was elected Conservative leader at 36. He led the party to gains in the 1999 European elections but made a net gain of one seat at the 2001 general election and resigned. On the back benches he wrote biographies of William Pitt the Younger and William Wilberforce and earned a large income from directorships and speaking.

David Cameron made him shadow foreign secretary in 2005, and in the coalition government formed in 2010 he was Foreign Secretary and First Secretary of State, then Leader of the House of Commons from 2014. He stood down from Parliament in 2015, was made a life peer as Baron Hague of Richmond, and became Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 2025.