46 Facts About Douglas Hurd

Douglas Hurd stood unsuccessfully for the Conservative Party leadership in 1990, and retired from frontline politics during a Cabinet reshuffle in 1995.

In 1997, Douglas Hurd was elevated to the House of Lords and is one of the Conservative Party's most senior elder statesmen.

Douglas Hurd was born in 1930 in the market town of Marlborough in Wiltshire.

Douglas Hurd attended Twyford School and Eton College, where he was a King's Scholar and won the Newcastle Scholarship in 1947.

Douglas Hurd began in July 1948 with a compulsory period in the ranks of the Royal Regiment of Artillery alongside young men of all social backgrounds.

Douglas Hurd was selected for officer training, attended Mons Officer Cadet School, Aldershot; from November 1948, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 5th Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery at the start of March 1949.

Douglas Hurd was released from the Army in September 1949 to take up his place at Cambridge University.

Douglas Hurd trained for a few weeks each summer as a reserve officer until 1952.

Douglas Hurd went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, in the autumn of 1949.

Douglas Hurd achieved an upper second in his preliminary exams in summer 1950.

Douglas Hurd attended a selection panel, but withdrew from the process because, he later wrote, he did not want a career which would have to be pursued in secret.

Douglas Hurd graduated in 1952 with a first-class degree in history.

Douglas Hurd was posted to China, the United States and Italy, before leaving the service in 1966 to enter politics as a member of the Conservative Party.

Douglas Hurd became private secretary to Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath, and was first elected to Parliament in February 1974 to represent the constituency of Mid Oxfordshire.

Douglas Hurd brought in the Public Order Act, 1986, which created the crime of hate speech for speech which is "threatening, abusive or insulting" and which is spoken in public, with intent or likely to "stir up" racial hatred.

On 26 October 1989, Douglas Hurd moved to the Foreign Office, succeeding John Major, whose rapid rise through the Cabinet saw him become Chancellor of the Exchequer in the wake of Nigel Lawson's resignation.

In mid-November 1990, he supported Margaret Thatcher's candidature as Conservative Party leader against challenger Michael Heseltine, but on her withdrawal from the second round of the contest on 22 November, Douglas Hurd decided to enter the race as a moderate centre-right candidate, drawing on his reputation as a successful 'law-and-order' Home Secretary.

Douglas Hurd was endorsed by former Prime Minister and Conservative Party Leader Edward Heath.

Douglas Hurd was seen as an outsider, lagging behind the more charismatic Heseltine and the eventual winner, John Major, who shared the moderate centre-right political ground with Hurd but had the added advantages of youth and political momentum.

Years later, Douglas Hurd expressed frustration that his privileged background counted against him in the leadership election, commenting in an interview that "I should have said I am standing for leadership of the Tory party and not for some demented Marxist outfit".

Douglas Hurd came third, winning 56 of the 372 votes cast and, together with Heseltine, conceded defeat to allow Major, who had fallen just three votes short of an outright majority, to return unopposed and take over as prime minister on 27 November 1990.

Douglas Hurd was gracious in defeat and, on the formation of Major's first Cabinet, was returned to his position as Foreign Secretary.

Douglas Hurd was widely regarded as a statesmanlike British Foreign Secretary, his tenure having been particularly eventful.

Douglas Hurd oversaw Britain's diplomatic responses to the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, as well as the first Gulf War to drive Ba'athist Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.

Douglas Hurd was a signatory of the Maastricht Treaty establishing the European Union in 1992.

Douglas Hurd welcomed a reunified Germany into the European political community in 1990.

Douglas Hurd resisted pressure to allow Bosnian refugees to enter into Britain arguing that to do so would reduce pressure on the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina to sue for peace.

Douglas Hurd described his and British policy during that time as 'realist'.

Shortly after his withdrawal from frontline politics, Douglas Hurd travelled to Serbia and Montenegro to meet Slobodan Milosevic on behalf of the British bank NatWest, fuelling some speculation that Douglas Hurd had taken a pro-Serbian line.

In 2010 Douglas Hurd told a reporter that he was troubled by his Bosnia policy but still doubted that intervention would have brought about an earlier end to the war.

Douglas Hurd was involved in a public scandal concerning Britain's funding of a hydroelectric dam on the Pergau River in Malaysia, near the Thai border.

In 1995, during the Cabinet reshuffle widely seen as setting up the Conservative team which would contest the next election, Douglas Hurd retired from frontline politics after 11 years in the Cabinet and was replaced by Malcolm Rifkind.

Douglas Hurd left the House of Commons at the 1997 general election, and on 13 June 1997 was created Baron Douglas Hurd of Westwell, of Westwell in the County of Oxfordshire, which enabled him to continue sitting in Parliament as a member of the House of Lords.

Douglas Hurd retired from the Lords on 9 June 2016.

In December 1997, Douglas Hurd was appointed chairman of British Invisibles.

Douglas Hurd was chairman of the judging panel for the 1998 Booker Prize for Fiction.

Douglas Hurd became a member of the Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords in February 1999, and in September 1999 he was appointed High Steward of Westminster Abbey, reflecting his long active membership of the Church of England.

Douglas Hurd later went on to chair the Hurd Commission which produced a review of the roles and functions of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Douglas Hurd is chairman of the advisory council at FIRST, an international affairs organisation.

Douglas Hurd was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1974 and Companion of Honour in the 1996 New Year Honours.

Douglas Hurd was formerly a Visiting Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford and Chairman of the German British Forum.

Douglas Hurd is a member of the Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-proliferation, established in October 2009.

Tatiana Douglas Hurd cited her husband's career as the reason for their separation, saying, "Really, politics don't mix with marriage".

In 1982 Douglas Hurd married Judy Smart, his former parliamentary secretary, who was 19 years his junior.

Judy Douglas Hurd died of leukaemia on 22 November 2008 in an Oxford hospital, aged 58.

Douglas Hurd's name appeared on a list of suspected MI6 operatives which was published on the Internet, along with the name of Douglas himself.