Denis Thatcher
Template:Short description Template:More citations needed Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox person Sir Denis Thatcher, 1st Baronet, Template:Postnom (10 May 1915 – 26 June 2003) was an English businessman and the husband of Margaret Thatcher, who served as the first female British prime minister from 1979 to 1990; thus, he became the first male prime ministerial spouse.
Thatcher was granted the Thatcher baronetcy in 1990, the only baronetcy created since 1964, and remains the most recent non-royal to have been awarded a hereditary title.
Early lifeEdit
Denis Thatcher was born on 10 May 1915 at 26 Southbrook Road, Lee, Lewisham, London, as the first child of New Zealand–born British businessman Thomas Herbert "Jack" ThatcherTemplate:Sfn and Lilian Kathleen Bird. At age eight, Denis entered a preparatory school in Bognor Regis as a boarder, following which he attended the nonconformist public school Mill Hill School in north London.Template:Sfn At school he excelled at cricket, being a left-handed batsman.Template:Sfn
Thatcher left Mill Hill School in 1933 and joined the family paint and preservatives business,Template:Sfn Atlas Preservatives.<ref name=theguardian>Template:Cite news</ref> He also studied accountancy to improve his grasp of business,Template:Sfn and in 1935 he was appointed works manager.Template:Sfn He joined the Territorial Army shortly after the Munich crisis, as he was convinced war was imminentTemplate:SfnTemplate:Snd a view reinforced by a visit he made to Nazi Germany with his father's business in 1937.<ref name=theguardian/>
Military careerEdit
During the Second World War, Thatcher was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the 34th (The Queen's Own Royal West Kent) Searchlight Regiment, Royal Artillery. He transferred to the Royal Artillery on 1 August 1940.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> During the war he was promoted to war substantive captain and temporary major. He served throughout the Allied invasion of Sicily and the Italian campaign and was twice mentioned in dispatches, and in 1945 was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). The first mention in dispatches came on 11 January 1945, for service in Italy,<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> and the second on 29 November 1945, again for Italian service.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref>
His MBE was gazetted on 20 September 1945,<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> and was awarded for his efforts in initiating and supporting Operation Goldflake, the transfer of I Canadian Corps from Italy to the north-west European theatre of operations. Thatcher was based in Marseille, attached to HQ 203 sub-area. In the recommendation for the MBE (dated 28 March 1945), his commanding officer wrote: "Maj. Thatcher set an outstanding example of energy, initiative and drive. He deserves most of the credit for [...] the excellence of the work done."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Thatcher also received the approximate French equivalent of a mention when he was cited in orders at Corps d'Armée level for his efforts in promoting smooth relations between the Commonwealth military forces and the French civil and military authorities.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He was promoted to substantive lieutenant on 11 April 1945.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> Demobilised in 1946, he returned to run the family businessTemplate:Snd his father having died (aged 57) on 24 June 1943, when Thatcher was in Sicily. Because of army commitments, Thatcher was unable to attend the funeral.Template:Sfn
He remained in the Territorial Army reserve of officers until reaching the age limit for service on 10 May 1965, when he retired, retaining the honorary rank of major.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref>
On 21 September 1982 he was awarded the Territorial Decoration (TD) for his service.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref>
MarriagesEdit
Thatcher married twice, during wartime to Margot Kempson in 1942 (divorced in 1948),<ref name=theguardian/> and in 1951 to Margaret Roberts.<ref name=telegraph>Template:Cite news</ref>
Margot KempsonEdit
On 28 March 1942, Thatcher married Margaret Doris<ref name=telegraph/> "Margot" Kempson, the daughter of a businessman,Template:Sfn at St Mary's Church in Monken Hadley. They met at an officers' dance at Grosvenor House the year before.Template:Sfn
Thatcher and his first wife never lived together.<ref name=theguardian/> Their married life became confined to snatched weekends and irregular leaves as Thatcher was often abroad during the war. When Thatcher returned to England after being demobilised in 1946, his wife told him she had met someone else and wanted a divorce.Template:Sfn
Thatcher was so traumatised by the event that he completely refused to talk about his first marriage or the separation, even to his daughter, as she states in her 1996 biography of him.Template:SfnTemplate:Page needed Thatcher's two children found out about his first marriage only in 1976 (by which time, their mother had become Leader of the Opposition) and then only when the media revealed it.Template:Sfn
Margaret ThatcherEdit
In February 1949, at a Paint Trades Federation function in Dartford, he met Margaret Hilda Roberts, a chemist and newly selected parliamentary candidate. When she met Denis for the first time, she described him as "not a very attractive creature" and "very reserved but quite nice".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> They married on 13 December 1951, at Wesley's Chapel in City Road, London; the Robertses were Methodists. Margaret Thatcher was elected Leader of the Conservative Party in 1975. She went on to win the 1979 general election to become the first female prime minister in British history. Denis became the first husband of a British prime minister.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In 1953, they had twin children (Carol and Mark), who were born on 15 August at Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital in Hammersmith, seven weeks premature.Template:Sfn Thatcher was watching the deciding Test of the 1953 Ashes series at the time of the twins' birth.Template:Sfn They had watched the Coronation earlier in the year from Parliament Square.Template:Sfn
Not long after the 1964 general election, Thatcher suffered a nervous breakdown which put a severe strain on his marriage.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The breakdown was probably caused by the increasing pressure of running the family business, caring for his relatives, and his wife's preoccupation with her political career, which left him lonely and exhausted.Template:Sfn Thatcher sailed to South Africa and stayed there for two months to recuperate.Template:Sfn His wife's biographer David Cannadine described it as "the greatest crisis of their marriage", but immediately after, he recovered and returned home, he maintained a happy marriage for the rest of his life.Template:Sfn
This second marriage for Thatcher led to the future prime minister being sometimes referred to as "Mrs Denis Thatcher" in such sources as selection minutes,Template:Sfn travel itineraries,<ref name=":0">Template:Harvnb</ref> and society publications such as Queen, even after she was elected a Member of Parliament.<ref name=":0" />Template:Sfn As Margaret's political career progressed, she preferred to be known only as "Mrs Thatcher".
According to John Campbell, a biographer of his wife, "their marriage was more a partnership of mutual convenience than a romance",Template:Sfn quoting their daughter Carol in her biography of Denis:
Business careerEdit
Thatcher was already a wealthy man when he met Margaret, and he financed her training as a barrister, and a home in Chelsea, London.Template:Sfn He also bought a large house in Lamberhurst, Kent, in 1965.Template:Sfn His firm employed 200 people by 1957.Template:Sfn
Thatcher became managing director of his family's firm Atlas Preservatives in 1947 and chairman in 1951, leading its overseas expansion.Template:Citation needed By the early 1960s, he found being in sole control of the family company difficult.Template:Citation needed This, his wife's political career, and their desire for financial security caused Thatcher to sell Atlas to Castrol in 1965 for £530,000 (£Template:Inflation today). He continued to run Atlas and received a seat on Castrol's board; after Burmah Oil took over Castrol in 1966, Thatcher became a senior divisional director, managing the planning and control department.Template:SfnTemplate:Quote needed He retired from Burmah in June 1975,Template:Citation needed four months after his wife won the Conservative Party leadership election.
In addition to being a director of Burmah Oil, Thatcher was a director and deputy chairman of Attwoods from July 1983 until January 1994.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Annual accounts for year ended 31 July 1994 Attwoods 5 December 1994 page 14Template:Dead</ref> He was also a director of Quinton Hazell and a consultant to Amec and CSX.<ref>Annual accounts for year ended 31 July 1992 Attwoods 2 December 1992 page 9Template:Dead</ref>
His wife's biographer Robin Harris concludes:Template:Quote
Public life and perceptionsEdit
Thatcher refused press interviews and made only brief speeches. When he did speak to the press, he called his wife "The Boss". Margaret Thatcher often acknowledged her husband's support. In her autobiography, she wrote: "I could never have been Prime Minister for more than 11 years without Denis by my side." Thatcher saw his role as helping her survive the stress of the job, which he urged her to resign on the tenth anniversary of her becoming prime minister in 1989,Template:Citation needed sensing that otherwise she would be forced out.
In an interview with The Times in October 1970, Thatcher said: "I don't pretend that I'm anything but an honest-to-God right-wingerTemplate:Sndashthose are my views and I don't care who knows 'em."<ref>Template:Cite interview</ref> His public image was shaped by the satirical "Dear Bill" columns appearing since 1979 in Private Eye, which portrayed him as a "juniper-sozzled, rightwing, golf-obsessed halfwit", and Thatcher found it useful to play along with this image to avoid allegations of unduly influencing his wife in political matters.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Given his professional background, Thatcher served as an advisor on financial matters, warning Margaret about the poor condition of British Leyland after reviewing its books. He often insisted that she avoid overwork, to little avail, sometimes pleading, "Bed, woman!"<ref name="runciman20130606">Template:Cite news</ref> They otherwise usually kept their careers separate; an exception was when Thatcher accompanied his wife on a 1967 visit to the United States sponsored by the International Visitor Leadership Program.Template:Sfn
Thatcher was consistent in his strong opposition to the death penalty, calling it "absolutely awful" and "barbaric". He said that he was against it because of innocent people being wrongly hanged and because juries could also be afraid to convict for fear of making a mistake.Template:Citation needed Like his wife, Thatcher was consistently anti-socialist. He told his daughter in 1995 that he would have banned trade unions altogether in Britain.Template:Citation needed He had low regard for the BBC, thinking it was biased against his wife and her government, as well as unpatriotic. In his most famous outburst about the corporation, he claimed his wife had been "stitched up by bloody BBC poofs and Trots" when she was questioned by a member of the public about the sinking of the Template:Ship on Nationwide in 1983.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Thatcher was reported by New Zealand (NZ) broadcaster and former diplomat Chris Laidlaw—at the time NZ High Commissioner to Zimbabwe—as leaning towards him during a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, asking "So, what do you think the fuzzy wuzzies are up to?"<ref>Template:Cite interview</ref>
In December 1990, following the resignation of his wife as prime minister, it was announced that Thatcher would be created a baronet, (the first and only baronetcy created since 1964).<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> The award was gazetted in February 1991, giving his title as Sir Denis Thatcher, 1st Baronet, of Scotney in the County of Kent.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> Thus, his wife was entitled to style herself Lady Thatcher while retaining her seat in the House of Commons; however, she made it known that she preferred to remain addressed as "Mrs Thatcher",<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and would not use the style. She was created a life peeress as Baroness Thatcher (Lady Thatcher in her own right) shortly after she retired from the Commons in 1992.
In July 1991, Thatcher was created a Commander of the Order of St John; his wife was also made a Dame of the order.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref>
Illness and deathEdit
In the autumn of 1992, Thatcher was diagnosed with prostate cancer,Template:Sfn but it was caught early. He responded well to treatment.
On 17 January 2003, Thatcher underwent a six-hour heart-bypass operation and aortic valve operation at a Harley Street clinic. He had complained of breathlessness for several weeks before Christmas 2002, and the problem was diagnosed in early January. He left the clinic on 28 January 2003 and appeared to recover fully after recuperation. Thatcher returned home on 14 February and visited his son Mark in South Africa in April, but in early June, he again complained of breathlessness and listlessness. Lady Thatcher's staff also thought he looked unwell, and on 13 June, he was admitted to the Royal Brompton Hospital for further tests.<ref name="irishtimes.com">Template:Cite news</ref> Nothing wrong was found with his heart but terminal pancreatic cancer was diagnosed,Template:Sfn along with fluid in his lungs. He was told nothing could be done for him, and after seven days there, on 20 June, he was transferred to the Lister Hospital.<ref name="irishtimes.com" /> He lost consciousness on 24 June<ref name="Telegraph2003">Template:Cite news</ref> and never regained it. He died on the morning of 26 June, at the age of 88.<ref name="Telegraph2003" />
His funeral service took place on 3 July 2003 at the chapel of the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London, followed by a cremation at Mortlake Crematorium<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> in Richmond, London. On 30 October, a memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey. His ashes were buried under a white marble marker just outside the Royal Hospital in Chelsea.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Following his wife's death in 2013, her ashes were buried near his.<ref name="Telegraph-20130913">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="BBC-intere">Template:Cite news</ref>
ProfilesEdit
Married to MaggieEdit
Produced by his daughter Carol,<ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref> Thatcher's single public interview Template:Citation needed span was made into a documentary film titled Married to Maggie,<ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref> broadcast after his death.<ref name=theguardian.com/> In it he revealed that the spouses he liked were Raisa Gorbacheva, Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush.<ref name=theguardian.com>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He called his wife's successor, John Major, "a ghastly prime minister", saying that "[i]t would have been a [...] very good thing" had he lost the 1992 general election. He added that he thought his wife was "the best prime minister since Churchill."<ref name=theguardian.com/>
Below the ParapetEdit
Template:Citeref (1996) is the biography by his daughter Carol. In it, he said that politics as a profession or way of life did not appeal to him.Template:SfnTemplate:Page needed World leaders he got on with included George H. W. Bush,Template:Sfn F. W. de Klerk,Template:Sfn Hussein of JordanTemplate:Sfn and Mikhail Gorbachev,Template:SfnTemplate:Page needed whilst he disliked Indira Gandhi and Sir Sonny Ramphal.Template:Sfn Thatcher admitted that he was not sure where the Falkland Islands were until they were invaded in 1982.Template:Sfn
Medals and honoursEdit
Thatcher was awarded the following medals and honours:
| File:Baronet's Badge ribbon.png | File:Order of the British Empire (Military) Ribbon.svg | File:St John Order Ribbon (UK).gif |
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| File:Ribbon - Efficiency Decoration (TAVR).png | File:Ribbon - War Medal & MiD.png | File:Italy Star BAR.svg | File:39-45 Star BAR.svg |
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| Year | Ribbon | Appointment | Letters |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1945 | File:Ribbon - War Medal & MiD.png | War Medal 1939–1945 with Mention in Dispatches Oakleaf | rowspan="3" Template:N/a |
| File:Italy Star BAR.svg | Italy Star | ||
| File:39-45 Star BAR.svg | 1939–1945 Star | ||
| File:Order of the British Empire (Military) Ribbon.png | Member of the Order of the British Empire (Military Division) | MBE | |
| 1982 | File:Ribbon - Efficiency Decoration (TAVR).png | Territorial Decoration | TD |
| 1990 | File:Baronet's Badge ribbon.png | Baronetcy | Bt |
| 1991 | File:Order of St John (UK) ribbon -vector.svg | Commander of the Order of St John | CStJ |
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ReferencesEdit
Works citedEdit
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External linksEdit
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