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Sunday 30 November 2014

Anthony Eden

Anthony Eden (1897-1977) was appointed Foreign Secretary in 1935 by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and resigned in 1938 in protest at Chamberlain's appeasement of Adolf Hitler. He was Churchill's Foreign Secretary during World War II, and again in 1951–1955.


Eden was considered in the 1930s as one of the best-dressed members of the House of Commons. He regularly wore a Homburg hat (similar to a trilby but more rigid), which became known in Britain as an "Anthony Eden".

In 1952 he married Winston Churchill's niece, Clarissa Spencer-Churchill (b. 1920). It was his second marriage.

Eden had operation to remove gallstones in 1953. The operation went wrong, and his health was ruined.

When Eden took over from Churchill as Prime Minister in 1955, he was still ill and dependent upon the Benzedrine, which caused him to make poor decisions and to be bad- tempered.

Source http://www.number10.gov.uk/past-prime-ministers/sir-anthony-eden/ http://www.number10.gov.uk

During the Suez Crisis, Sir Anthony Eden took 'purple heart' pills, or Drinamyl, which were half-barbiturate (to calm him down) and half- amphetamine (to perk him up).

Anthony Eden resigned as Prime Minister on January 9, 1957 following his failure to retake the Suez Canal from Egyptian sovereignty. Doctors had warned him his life was at stake if he continued in office.

Sir Anthony Eden died from liver cancer in Salisbury on January 14, 1977, at the age of 79. Born in the year of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, he thus died in the year of Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee.

Eden is one of the two British Prime Ministers to have given his name to an item of clothing (the Anthony Eden hat). The other being the Duke of Wellington after whom the Wellington boot is named.

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