57 Facts About Reginald Maudling

Reginald Maudling was a British politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1962 to 1964 and as Home Secretary from 1970 to 1972.

The family moved to Bexhill to escape German air raids; Maudling won scholarships to the Merchant Taylors' School and Merton College, Oxford.

Reginald Maudling stayed out of undergraduate politics at Oxford, and studied the works of Hegel; he was to formulate his conclusions later as to the inseparability of economic and political freedom: "the purpose of State control and the guiding principle of its application is the achievement of true freedom".

Shortly after graduating, Reginald Maudling set up a meeting with Harold Nicolson to discuss whether it would be better, as a moderate conservative, to join the Conservative Party or National Labour; Nicolson advised him to wait.

Reginald Maudling was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple in 1940.

Reginald Maudling wrote an essay on Conservative policy in November 1943, recommending that the Conservatives neither imitate the Labour Party nor reflexively oppose all controls; in the general election of July 1945, he was selected as parliamentary candidate for Heston and Isleworth, a newly created constituency in Middlesex, although there were four applicants and he had no ties to that constituency.

Reginald Maudling argued that the Party had depended excessively on outdated economic slogans and the popularity of Winston Churchill.

In November 1945, Reginald Maudling became the first staff member of the Conservative Parliamentary Secretariat, later the Conservative Research Department, where he was head of the Economic Section.

Reginald Maudling persuaded the party to accept much of the Labour government's nationalisation programme and social services while cutting government spending.

In March 1946, Reginald Maudling was chosen as the prospective candidate for Barnet, close to his birthplace in Finchley, and began giving speeches there.

In 1950, Reginald Maudling was elected as Member of Parliament with an absolute majority.

The Ministry was responsible for aircraft production and supplying the armed forces, and Reginald Maudling came to agree with critics who argued that it was an unnecessary intermediary; he therefore recommended its abolition.

Reginald Maudling refused to continue at the Ministry of Supply and rejected an offer of the Ministry of Health because Iain Macleod, with whom he had a rivalry, had held the post five years earlier and Maudling did not want to be seen as five years behind him.

Nine months later, Reginald Maudling had proved his usefulness; Macmillan brought him into the Cabinet on 17 September 1957, where he acted more as a Minister without Portfolio: he had specific responsibility for persuading the six members of the embryonic European Economic Community, who had recently signed the Treaty of Rome, to abandon their proposal for a customs union in favour of a wider free-trade area where each country would preserve their own external tariffs.

Reginald Maudling later revised his proposals, which were to form the basis of the European Free Trade Association.

Meanwhile, Reginald Maudling became an underwriting member of Lloyd's of London in December 1957, although his assets were somewhat below average for other 'names'.

Reginald Maudling entered the front line of politics after the 1959 election when appointed President of the Board of Trade.

Reginald Maudling was responsible for introducing the government's proposals to help areas of high unemployment.

Reginald Maudling succeeded in negotiating a free trade agreement between the countries outside the Common Market; this became the European Free Trade Association and was some compensation for his failure to negotiate a free trade area with the Common Market.

Reginald Maudling was opposed to any proposal to join the Common Market on the basis that it would end Britain's right to make commercial agreements with New Zealand and Australia.

Reginald Maudling was later to remark that "I can think of no more retrograde step economically or politically".

Reginald Maudling was for a short time, as Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1961, responsible for the process of decolonisation.

However, Reginald Maudling was keen to return to economic policy, and seized his opportunity when Macmillan made it clear in private that he supported a voluntary incomes policy.

Reginald Maudling promptly made his case in public, and three weeks later was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in Macmillan's "Night of the Long Knives" attempt to rejuvenate his Cabinet.

Reginald Maudling abolished the rate of duty on home-brewed beer which in effect legalised it.

Reginald Maudling largely recognised this himself by the time of the 1964 budget and, although he increased taxes, he did little to subdue demand in an election year.

Macmillan's sudden illness and announcement of his resignation in October 1963 came at a time when Reginald Maudling's support had fallen.

Reginald Maudling was poorly received at the Conservative Party conference, which had become a hustings for the leadership, despite coaching from Iain Macleod, in how to deliver his speech.

Enoch Powell, Macleod, Hailsham and Reginald Maudling sought to persuade Butler to refuse to serve under Home, so that Butler rather than Home would have to become Prime Minister.

Macleod and Reginald Maudling demanded that Dilhorne lay the results of his consultations before the Cabinet but he refused.

Reginald Maudling retained his post as Chancellor under the new Prime Minister and in the 1964 election, Reginald Maudling had a prominent role at the helm of the party's daily press conferences, while Douglas-Home toured the country.

Out of office, Reginald Maudling accepted the offer of a seat on the board of Kleinwort Benson in November 1964, one of the factors which led to his being shifted to spokesman on Foreign Affairs in early 1965.

Unlike other potential leadership contenders, Reginald Maudling publicly maintained his loyalty to Douglas-Home as criticisms of his leadership mounted.

When Douglas-Home resigned, after putting in place a system in which the leadership was directly elected, Reginald Maudling fought against Edward Heath for the position of candidate to the party centre-right.

Unfortunately for Reginald Maudling, Enoch Powell stood, but he was a candidate supporting monetarist and proto-Thatcherite economics, which at that time had little support.

Reginald Maudling won 133 votes against Heath's 150; Powell's 15 votes were seen as more likely to have gone to Reginald Maudling had Powell not stood, but they would have made no difference to Heath's narrow majority.

Reginald Maudling served as Deputy Leader under Heath, and was a prominent member of the Shadow Cabinet.

Reginald Maudling tended to make gaffes, as for example when he said Harold Wilson had been following the same policy as the Conservatives on Rhodesia and "I can't think of anything he has done wrongly".

Reginald Maudling tended to trust the Unionist-controlled Government of Northern Ireland and gloss over differences between their approach and that of the United Kingdom government.

Reginald Maudling introduced Community Service, a new alternative to prison, and in 1971 modestly tightened the immigration rules.

Reginald Maudling was criticised for ordering the deportation of Rudi Dutschke, a leader of the German student movement.

Reginald Maudling was often the target of satirical cartoons in major newspapers, and was lampooned in the magazine Private Eye and the television comedy show Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Devlin subsequently told journalists that Reginald Maudling's statement contained numerous falsehoods and expressed no regrets for the victims of the incident.

In 1966, he had obtained a directorship in the company of John Poulson, an architect Reginald Maudling helped obtain lucrative contracts.

The bankruptcy hearings disclosed his bribe payments, and Reginald Maudling's connection became public knowledge.

Reginald Maudling came to the decision that his responsibility for the Metropolitan Police, which was beginning fraud investigations into Poulson, made his position as Home Secretary untenable.

Reginald Maudling appointed Maudling to the post of Shadow Foreign Secretary.

However, Reginald Maudling clashed with Thatcher over economics, and after less than two years in the role he was dismissed on 19 November 1976.

Departing, Reginald Maudling summed up his career as "hired by Winston Churchill, fired by Margaret Thatcher".

In 1969, Reginald Maudling had been president of the Real Estate Fund of America, whose chief executive, Jerome Hoffman, had been imprisoned for fraud; Reginald Maudling had been an adviser to the Peachey Property Corporation, whose chairman, Sir Eric Miller, had embezzled company money and later took his own life.

Reginald Maudling was revealed to have lobbied for more aid to Malta after obtaining a commission for Poulson there, which had led to heavy losses for the Maltese government.

Reginald Maudling died at the Royal Free Hospital in London, from kidney failure and cirrhosis of the liver, on 14 February 1979; he was 61.

Reginald Maudling's body was buried in the churchyard of Little Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire.

Reginald Maudling's mother had disowned him as a result of his marriage, and Reginald Maudling did not attend her funeral in 1956.

When Caroline aroused comment by having a child out of wedlock in the late 1960s, Reginald Maudling was staunch in her defence, publicly expressing paternal pride.

Beryl Reginald Maudling's body was buried next to her husband's at Little Berkhamsted.

Reginald Maudling was portrayed by actor Michael Culkin in the BBC-produced 2018 limited television series A Very English Scandal.