Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC, was a British Conservative politician. He served three periods as Foreign Secretary and then a relatively brief term as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1955 to 1957. Eden is generally ranked among the least successful British prime ministers of the 20th century.
About Anthony Eden in brief
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC, was a British Conservative politician. He served three periods as Foreign Secretary and then a relatively brief term as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1955 to 1957. Eden’s worldwide reputation as an opponent of appeasement and a skilled diplomat was overshadowed in 1956 when the United States refused to support the Anglo-French military response to the Suez Crisis. Eden is generally ranked among the least successful British prime ministers of the 20th century. He was the third of four sons of Sir William Eden, 7th and 5th Baronet, a former colonel and local magistrate from an old titled family. Eden was once amused to learn that one of his ancestors had, like Churchill’s ancestor the Duke of Marlborough, been the lover of Barbara Castlemaine. He did not resemble his father, but attributed this to his being being not an Eden, not an Grey, but a Grey. He attended Sandroyd School in Cobham, where he excelled in languages, then Eton and Cambridge. He married Sybil Frances Grey, a member of the prominent Grey family of Northumberland, but they had a strained relationship and her profligacy ruined the family fortunes. He had an elder brother, John, who was killed in action in 1914, and a younger brother, Nicholas, who died when the battlecruiser HMSIndefatigable blew up at Battle of Jutland in 1916.
His great-grandfather was William Iremonger, who commanded the 2nd Regiment of Foot during the Peninsular War and fought under Wellington at Vimeiro. Through the Calvert Family of Maryland, he was connected to the ancient Roman Catholic aristocracy of the Arundell and Howard families, some of whom were Roman Catholics like the Dukes of Norfolk and others Anglican such as the earls of Carlisle, Effingham and Suffolk. The Calverts had converted to the Established Church early in the 18th century to regain the proprietorship of Maryland. He was also descendant from the Schaffalitzky de Muckadell family of Denmark, and the Bie family of Norway. His mother was rumoured to have had an affair with George Wyndham, but he did not reciprocate her feelings and probably did not believe them. There was speculation for many years that Eden’s biological father was the politician and man of letters George Wy secondham. He died in a car crash in 1965. He is buried in the family seat of Windlestone Hall, County Durham, and is survived by his wife, three children and two grandchildren. He also leaves a son, a daughter, a son-in-law, a grandson and a step-son, and two step-great-granddaughters. He has a son and a daughter-grandchildren, all of whom are still living in the UK, and one of whom is a former Prime Minister.
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