Margaret Thatcher, former Conservative Member of Parliament for Barnet, Finchley, was Britain’s first female Prime Minister.  She was appointed Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service on May 4, 1979, following the success of the Conservative party in the general election of the previous day.  When the Conservative Party subsequently won the general election of June 9, 1983 and June 11, 1987, Lady Thatcher became the first British Prime Minister this century to contest successfully three consecutive general elections.  She resigned on November 29, 1990.  In December, 1990, she was awarded the Order of Merit by Her Majesty the Queen.  On June 30, 1992, she was elevated to the House of Lords to become Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven.  In April, 1995, she was made a Member of the Most Noble Order of the Garter.

 

Margaret Hilda Thatcher was born October 13, 1925, the daughter of a grocer who was active in local politics as borough councilor, alderman and Mayor of Grantham.  She was educated at Kesteven and Grantham Girl’s High School, won a bursary to Somerville College, Oxford, where she obtained a degree in Natural Science (Chemistry).  She is also a Master of Arts (MA) of Oxford University.  In June, 1983, she was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).
 Upon leaving Oxford, she worked for four years as a research chemist for an industrial firm, reading for the Bar in her spare time.  She was called to the Bar by Lincoln’s Inn in 1954, and practiced as a barrister, specializing in taxation law.

 

Lady Thatcher’s late husband, Sir Denis Thatcher, whom she married in 1951, served in the Second world War as a Major in the Royal Artillery.  He was a former director of Burmah Castrol.

 

After 1990 Lady Thatcher remained a potent political figure.  She wrote two best-selling volumes of memoirs—The Downing Street Years (1993) and The Path to Power (1995) - while continuing for a full decade to tour the world as a lecturer.  A book of reflections on international politics—Statecraft—was published in 2002.  During the period she made some important interventions in domestic British politics, notably over Bosnia and the Maastricht Treaty.

 

In March 2002, following several small strokes, she announced an end to her career in public speaking.

 

Critics and supporters alike recognize the Thatcher premiership as a period of fundamental importance in British history.  Whether they were converted to “Thatcherism”, or merely forced by the electorate to pay it lip service, the Labor Party leadership was transformed by her period of office and the “new Labor” politics of Tony Blair would not have exited without her.