1955 - 1961

Richard ('Rab') Butler (1902-1982) entered politics in 1929 as a Conservative, with the financial and political support of his wife's family. He gained ministerial office in 1932, as under-Secretary at the foreign office, where he became associated with the policy of appeasement of Nazi Germany. Despite this, Churchill kept him in his wartime government, and in 1941 he became President of the Board of Education and masterminded the comprehensive educational reform programme enacted in 1944. In opposition after 1945, he was a major influence on Conservative policy, and when the party returned to power in 1951 he became chancellor of the exchequer, and helped to ensure Conservative victory in the election of 1955. He was widely regarded as the most likely successor to prime minister Eden. However, after the election and amid signs of a growing economic crisis, Eden moved him from the Treasury and made him Leader of the Commons, and on the resignation of Eden in 1957 Butler failed to obtain the Leadership of the party and the premiership, which went to Macmillan instead. He remained in the government, as home Secretary and still as Leader of the Commons until 1961; in 1962 he became first Secretary of State and deputy prime minister. When a second chance at the premiership came with the departure of Macmillan in 1963, he lost out again, this time to Alec Douglas Home. Butler left front-line politics in 1965, becoming Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a life peer.

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