Mrs. Margaret Thatcher was Britain's first woman Prime Minister. She was appointed Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service in 1979, following the success of the Conservative Party in the general election the previous day. Mrs. Thatcher subsequently became the first British Prime Minister this century to win three consecutive general elections.

Margaret Hilda Thatcher was born in 1925, the daughter of a grocer who was active in local politics, eventually becoming mayor of Grantham. She went to Kesteven and Grantham Girls' High School, won a bursary to Somerville College, Oxford and obtained a BSc in Natural Science. She worked for four years as an industrial research chemist, studying for the Bar in her spare time. From 1954 she practized as a barrister.

As an undergraduate she was President of the Oxford University Conservative Association. As Miss Margaret Roberts she stood unsuccessfully for Parliament in 1950 and 1951, but (after her marriage) entered the House of Commons in 1959 as Member of Parliament for Finchley. She represented the same seat until 1974 when boundary changes made her the MP for Barnet, Finchley.

Mrs Thatcher's first ministerial appointment came in 1961, as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. From 1964 to 1970, she was front-bench spokesman for the Conservative Opposition; from 1967, as a member of the Shadow Cabinet, she had a wide range of portfolios. When the Conservatives returned to power in 1970 she was appointed Secretary of State for Education and Science. In 1974, she returned to the Shadow Cabinet as Front-Bench spokesman on the environment, then, at the end of that year on Treasury matters. She was elected Leader of the Conservative Party and thus Leader of the Opposition in 1975.

In 1990, after three years of her third term as Prime Minister, she was succeeded as party leader by John Major. She was created a life peer in 1992, with the title Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven and continues to represent Conservatism in the House of Lords. Her husband, Denis, became Sir Denis Thatcher, Baronet. Their twin children are a son, Mark and daughter, Carol.

Her writings include two volumes of memoirs, The Downing Street Years (1993) and The Path to Power (1995). She has been awarded the Freedom of the Borough of Barnet and of the City of London. She is an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford.

 

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