Anthony Eden

In 1923, he married Beatrice Beckett and the couple had three sons, one of whom died in infancy. Unfortunately, the couple later broke up under the strain of a son who went missing in action during the World War II and finally got divorced in 1950.

In 1952, he married Winston Churchill's niece, Clarissa Spencer-Churchill, a nominal Roman Catholic. The couple remained together until Eden’s death.

Anthony Eden died on January 14, 1977, from liver cancer in Salisbury, England, at the age of 79. He was buried in St Mary's churchyard at Alvediston.

Robert Anthony Eden was born on June 12, 1897, at Windlestone Hall, County Durham, England, to Sir William Eden, a baronet who belonged to an old titled family, and his wife, Sybil Frances Grey. He had an elder brother, John, and a younger brother, Nicholas, but unfortunately both died during World War I.

From 1907 to 1910, he received his education from Sandroyd School and later attended the Eton College.

During World War I, he served with the 21st (Yeoman Rifles) Battalion of the King's Royal Rifle Corps, and reached the rank of captain. Post-war, he graduated with a Double First in Oriental Languages from Christ Church, Oxford.

In November 1922 general election, Anthony Eden first contested for a seat but lost. He was later elected to the House of Commons in the December 1923 general election, as a Conservative.

During the 1924–1929 Conservative Government, Eden had his first stint in the administration. He served as Parliamentary Private Secretary first to the Home Secretary, Sir William Joynson Hicks, and later on to the Foreign Secretary Sir Austen Chamberlain.

In 1931, he was appointed the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. In 1934, he was appointed Lord Privy Seal and the following year, he became the Minister for the ‘League of Nations’ in Stanley Baldwin's Government.

In December 1935, he first became the ‘Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs’, a post he served until February 1938. His resignation was largely ascribed to protest Prime Minister Chamberlain’s appeasement policy of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

Upon the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he returned to Chamberlain's government with the post of ‘Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs’. After Winston Churchill replaced Chamberlain as the Prime Minister, Eden was appointed the Secretary of State for War.

In 1954, as the Foreign Secretary of the State and Deputy Prime Minister, he helped to resolve the Anglo-Iranian oil dispute, to settle the quarrel between Italy and Yugoslavia over Trieste, to stop the Indochina War, and to establish the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).