A public and private man

As prime minister, Sir Edward Heath presided over some of the most turbulent years in Britain’s post-war history.

His time in Downing Street – from 1970 to 1974 – was marked by widespread industrial unrest with power blackouts and much of the country reduced to a threeday working week.

For his supporters, his crowning achievement was to negotiate Britain’s entry into the Common Market, as the EU was then known – a decision that continues to divide Conservatives 40 years on.

His time in office ended ignominiously after he lost a snap general election which he had called to try to bolster his authority in the face of a second coal miners’ strike.

He never forgave Margaret Thatcher for ousting him as Tory leader in 1975, for years nursing a grudge which became known as the “incredible sulk”.

Sir Edward was born in Kent in 1916 and studied at Balliol College Oxford, becoming president of the Oxford Union. He served with the Royal Artillery during the Second World War.

He had entered parliament in 1950, as the MP for Bexley, and served in successive Conservative governments until 1964.

In 1965 he became the first elected and first state-educated leader of the Tories and held the role for the next decade.

A lifelong bachelor, Sir Edward was famously reticent about his private life focusing his energies away from politics on his twin passions of sailing and classical music.

Picture: PA. Sir Edward Heath was famously reticent about his private life and biographers have found little evidence of any intimate relationships.