Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon

b. 1897; d. 1977

British statesman, son of Sir William Eden, of Bishop Auckland, educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where he took a First in Oriental languages. He served with distinction in the First World War, being awarded the MC. In 1923 he was elected Conservative MP for Warwick and Leamington, representing this constituency until 1957. Under the National Government he became under-secretary at the Foreign Office in 1931; lord privy seal in 1934; minister without portfolio for League of Nations affairs in 1935, and later the same year, foreign secretary.

Eden's views differed fundamentally from those of Chamberlain, Baldwin's successor as premier, and in February 1938 he resigned as a result of a difference of opinion with Chamberlain over proposals for an Anglo-Italian pact. Eden was recalled to office on the outbreak of the Second World War, becoming secretary of state for dominion affairs. He was made secretary for was in Churchill's Cabinet (May 1940) but in the same year became once again foreign secretary, a post he held until 1945, doing much to consolidate Anglo-Russian friendship after 1941. From 1945 to 1951 his party was in opposition, but in 1951 Eden returned to the Foreign Office. His tenure of office was marked by several conspicuous successes; in 1954 the Geneva Conference produced a settlement of the Indo-China problem, and in this Eden play a large part. The London agreement (1954), which solved the problems of co-ordinated Western European defence created by the French Assembly's final rejection of the European Defence Community, was also due in great measure to Eden, and has been considered the greatest of his political career.

Eden succeeded Churchill as prime minister and Conservative leader in 1955. At the general election in May his party was returned with an increased majority. Throughout 1956 the situation deteriorated: rising prices, the 'credit squeeze', and limited unemployment produced discontent at home, and abroad, the nationalisation by Egypt of the Suez Canal in July was soon followed by an Israeli-Egyptian war in which Eden sanctioned Franco-British armed intervention. Under the strain of these events, and of attacks on his policy on the Suez crisis in the House of Commons, Eden's health broke down; on 9 January 1957 he resigned the premiership and retired from Parliament soon afterwards. Subsequently, he announced his intention to resign his parliamentary seat. Eden was created knight of the garter in 1954 and earl of Avon in 1961. He published his memoirs: Full Circle, 1960; Facing the Dictators, 1962; The Reckoning, 1965; and Towards Peace in Indochina, 1966.

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