Anthony Eden 1st earl of Avon

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Eden, Anthony, 1st earl of Avon (1897–1977). Prime minister. After Eton, Eden fought with distinction on the western front. With a first at Oxford he entered Parliament in 1923 for the safe seat of Warwick and Leamington. At this stage Eden showed few signs of distinction or originality, but he rose rapidly and as parliamentary private secretary to Austen Chamberlain 1926–9 began a lifelong association with foreign affairs.

It was as junior Foreign Office minister after 1931 that Eden's career prospered. He was seen as the champion of collective security through the League of Nations. Eden became lord privy seal in January 1934 and minister for League of Nations affairs in June 1935. In December 1935, after Samuel Hoare's resignation in the wake of the Hoare–Laval Pact, he emerged as foreign secretary, aged 38. Despite calling for accelerated rearmament, there is little evidence that he ruled out an accommodation with Hitler. It was ostensibly over relations with Italy that Eden resigned in February 1938, though the increasing interventions of the new prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, were contributory factors. Nevertheless, his resignation secured his reputation as an anti‐appeaser.

With the outbreak of war Eden became dominions secretary and was promoted to the War Office in May 1940. That December Eden returned to the post of foreign secretary where he established an effective partnership with Churchill. He was often called upon to restrain Churchill's fertile but over‐exuberant brain and from 1942 was Churchill's designated successor.

After the Conservatives' electoral defeat in 1945, Eden endured a further difficult decade as heir apparent. Churchill was frequently absent from Parliament, effectively leaving Eden to act as leader of the opposition. In 1951 Eden returned again to the Foreign Office. By now his relationship with Churchill had deteriorated. None the less his final period as foreign secretary was distinguished. Britain, through Eden, cut an impressive figure on the world stage which belied the decline in her intrinsic power even since 1945.

Churchill finally retired in April 1955 and Eden began his premiership on a wave of goodwill. Despite an impressive general election victory in May, the prime ministerial honeymoon was soon over. Colleagues became increasingly conscious of weaknesses which perhaps made him unsuited for the highest office of state—irritability, vanity, hyper‐sensitivity, and an inability to place sufficient trust in subordinates. Into this unpromising scenario broke the crisis created by Nasser's nationalization of the Suez canal in July 1956. Eden was handicapped by Britain's inability to take immediate military action. Nasser refused to provide him with the pretext formilitary intervention. After a secret agreement, which Eden tried desperately to erase from the historical record, Britain and France entered Egypt, ostensibly to separate the Israeli and Egyptian combatants. It was a paper‐thin deception. Under the pressure of world opinion, Britain was compelled to accept a cease‐fire on 6 November. Above all, Eden had grossly misjudged the response of the USA to Britain's actions. Eden was compelled by his doctors to resign the premiership and withdraw from public life in January 1957.With the patient care of his second wife, Clarissa, Eden lived for a further 20 years.

Eden, (Robert) Anthony, 1st Earl of Avon (b. 12 June 1897, d. 14 Jan. 1977). British Prime Minister 1955–7 Born in Windlestone, Co. Durham. After finishing at Eton he served on the Western Front in World War I and was awarded the Military Cross. After the war, he resumed his education at Oxford, and became Conservative MP for Warwick and Leamington in 1923. In 1926–9, he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Foreign Secretary, Austen Chamberlain. He became an Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office in 1931, and in 1935 entered the Cabinet as Minister for League of Nations Affairs. Later that year, he replaced Samuel Hoare as Foreign Secretary. Initially, he supported the policies of appeasement pursued by the government, but when Neville Chamberlain replaced Baldwin as Prime Minister in 1937, Eden found that his department was being increasingly interfered with.

Eden had the good fortune to resign in February 1938, just before the signing of the Munich Agreement, so that his career was untainted by the episode. Unlike Churchill, he was not a principled opponent of appeasement, his resignation being triggered more by dislike and distrust of Mussolini than of Hitler. Officially he stepped down over the government's recognition of Italy's conquest of Abyssinia, while the underlying cause was his struggle with Chamberlain over control of policy. Subsequently, he was critical of the government's foreign policies, and did not regain office until war broke out, when he became Dominions Secretary. Made Foreign Secretary by Churchill in 1940, he emerged as the second-in-command within the Conservative Party.

After defeat in the 1945 elections, Eden became increasingly impatient with Churchill's refusal to resign, especially as Churchill left the running of day-to-day politics to him, basking in his glory as a war hero. Again Foreign Secretary from 1951, his appeal to Churchill to resign became ever more pressing, though he was unable to succeed him until 1955, a year in which he led the party to a clear election victory. However, the fiasco of the Suez Crisis made his early resignation inevitable. Though not a military disaster, it was his complete failure to foresee and then acknowledge international outrage at Britain's actions which resulted in a resounding diplomatic and national humiliation. In this sense, his long and successful involvement in foreign policy for three decades proved more of a liability than an asset, leading him not to understand that Britain was no longer the world power it had been when he first took office.

Anthony Eden, 1st earl of Avon , 1897–1977, British statesman. After service in World War I he attended Oxford and entered (1923) Parliament as a Conservative. He soon made his mark as a champion of peace, internationalism, and the League of Nations and was made lord privy seal (1934–35) and "traveling ambassador." He served (1935) as British minister for League affairs and became foreign minister in 1935. He resigned in Feb., 1938, because of his opposition to Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement of the Axis powers, but at the beginning (1939) of World War II he was called back to the cabinet as secretary of state for dominion affairs. After Winston Churchill became (May, 1940) prime minister, Eden was briefly secretary of war before returning to the foreign office in Dec., 1940. He was instrumental in concluding the wartime Anglo-Soviet Alliance and in establishing the United Nations. He remained in Parliament under the Labour government of 1945–51, and with the Conservative victory of 1951 he returned once more to the foreign office. As chairman of the 1954 Geneva Conference, he helped to negotiate a temporary settlement of the conflict in Indochina. He was knighted in 1954 and became prime minister upon Churchill's resignation in 1955. Eden's decision to use armed intervention in the Suez Canal crisis of 1956 provoked great controversy. His health collapsed, and he resigned in Jan., 1957. He was raised to the peerage as earl of Avon in 1961.

Bibliography: See his three volumes of memoirs, Full Circle (1960), Facing the Dictators, 1923–1938 (1962), and The Reckoning (1965); study by G. McDermott (1969); biographies by R. R. James (1986) and D. Carlton (1981).

Eden, (Robert) Anthony, 1st Earl of Avon (1897–1977) British statesman; Conservative Prime Minister (1955–57). As Foreign Secretary from 1935 to 1938, he was noted for his support for the LEAGUE OF NATIONS: he resigned over his opposition to APPEASEMENT but was again Foreign Secretary from 1940 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1955. He was also deputy leader of the Conservatives (1945–55) under CHURCHILL, whom he succeeded as Prime Minister. Eden's premiership was dominated by the SUEZ WAR. Owing to his experience of appeasement, he was determined to stand up to President NASSER of Egypt, whom he perceived as a potential aggressor. Widespread opposition to Britain's role in the Suez Crisis, together with his own failing health, led to his resignation.