From above the grocer’s to the steps of Number 10: The Rise of the Iron Lady

By George Clements (Year 12)

It seems only appropriate that, shortly after the 10th anniversary of her passing, we should remember and pay homage to Margaret Thatcher, the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. There can be no denying that during her decade-long tenure as PM, she oversaw significant changes to our country’s identity, both socially and economically; the footprint she left behind following her departure was certainly not a faint one. Whatever your views on Mrs Thatcher, she was undeniably a woman of principle, and her strong, decisive leadership gave rise to her being commonly referred to as “The Iron Lady” by many. But how did it all begin? In this article, we explore how a middle-class grocer’s daughter from Grantham became such a prominent and influential figure in politics and British society.

From Grantham to Oxford

Margaret Hilda Roberts was born on 13th October 1925. She was the daughter of a successful small businessman, who owned a tobacconists and grocery store in the Lincolnshire market town of Grantham. She attended Huntingtower Road Primary School and won a scholarship to Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School, a grammar school, serving as Head Girl from 1942-43. Roberts was accepted for a scholarship to study chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, a women's college, starting in 1944, although after another candidate withdrew, Roberts entered Oxford in October 1943. It was here that she began to become involved with politics, serving as the President of the Oxford University Conservative Association in 1946. Despite the scientific nature of her degree, it is believed that she drew significant inspiration from Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom while studying at university. This book is widely known for condemning economic intervention by government, which may have influenced her to strive towards the “Thatcherite” economic policies for which she is so well known. She graduated in 1947 with a second-class degree, specialising in X-ray crystallography.

Picture above left exhibits Sommerville College Oxford

From Oxford to Westminster – the dawn of a political career

After graduating, Roberts moved to Colchester in Essex to work as a research chemist for BX Plastics. In 1948, she applied for a job at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) but was rejected after the personnel department assessed her as "headstrong, obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated". Roberts joined the local Conservative Association and attended the party conference at Llandudno, Wales, in 1948, as a representative of the University Graduate Conservative Association. One of her Oxford friends was also a friend of the Chair of the Dartford Conservative Association in Kent, who were looking for candidates. Officials of the association were so impressed by her that they asked her to apply, even though she was not on the party's approved list; she was selected in January 1950 (aged 24) and added to the approved list. It was during this time that she met her husband-to-be, Denis Thatcher, a wealthy businessman.

In the 1950 and 1951 general elections, Roberts was the Conservative candidate for the Labour seat ofDartford. The local party selected her as its candidate because, though not a dynamic public speaker, Roberts was well-prepared and fearless in her answers. A prospective candidate, Bill Deedes, recalled: "Once she opened her mouth, the rest of us began to look rather second-rate." She attracted media attention as the youngest and the only female candidate; in 1950, she was the youngest Conservative candidate in the country. She lost on both occasions to Norman Dodds but reduced the Labour majority by 6,000 and then a further 1,000. During the campaigns, she was supported by her parents and by her future husband Denis Thatcher, whom she married in December 1951. Denis funded his wife's studies for the bar; she qualified as a barrister in 1953 and specialised in taxation. Later that same year their twins Carol and Mark were born. After a by-election loss in Orpington in 1955, it was at the 1959 election when, after a tireless campaign, she was finally elected to parliament as the Conservative Member of Parliament for Finchley.

From MP to PM – rising through the ranks

Thatcher’s talent and drive led to her being promoted to the frontbench as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry for the Pensions by Prime Minister Harold MacMillan. After the 1966 election defeat, she was not appointed as a member of the shadow cabinet, although her influence remained strong, with regular speeches criticising Labour’s high-tax policies “as a move towards communism”. During this time, she also voted in favour of decriminalising male homosexuality and in favour of abortion, one of only a few Conservative MPs to do so. She was appointed as a transport minister in the Shadow Cabinet in the late 1960s, before being promoted to Education Secretary following Ted Heath’s election victory in 1970. In this role, she supported the retention of grammar schools, and was famously involved in the 1971 decision to discontinue the provision of free milk to all children aged 7-11, which gave rise to her well-known nickname “the Milk Snatcher”. However, it later emerged that she herself was not in favour of this policy and was instead persuaded by the Treasury to introduce it. Following Heath’s election loss in 1974, Thatcher was not initially seen as the obvious replacement, but she eventually became the main challenger, promising a fresh start. Her main support came from the parliamentary 1922 Committee and The Spectator, but Thatcher's time in office gave her the reputation of a pragmatist rather than that of an ideologue. She defeated Heath on the first ballot, and he resigned from the leadership. In the second ballot she defeated Whitelaw, Heath's preferred successor. Thatcher's election had a polarising effect on the party; her support was stronger among MPs on the right, and also among those from southern England, and those who had not attended private schools or Oxbridge. She became Conservative Party leader and Leader of the Opposition on 11 February 1975. During her time in this role, she continued to push for a wide range of neoliberal economic policies, criticising the Callaghan’s Labour government for the high unemployment rate and hundreds of public-sector strikes impacting local services in the 1978-9 “Winter of Discontent”.

With much frustration at the high rate of inflation and lack of confidence about the direction of the country, support for the government began to weaken. A vote of no confidence in Callaghan’s leadership was called in early 1979, which he lost, resulting in a general election being called. Throughout her campaign, she continued to exploit the failures of Callaghan’s government, promising a new style of leadership, a reduction in the size of the state, and various other neoliberal economic reforms, focusing on tackling inflation and the militant unions who had caused so much havoc the previous winter, and of course, advocating the Right to Buy scheme whereby tenants would be able to purchase their council-owned homes. Her campaign was also centred around attracting the traditional Labour-voting working class, amongst whom her promises of major social and economic reforms proved popular.