Richard Edward Geoffrey Howe, Baron Howe of Aberavon, was a British Conservative politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1989 to 1990.
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Born on 20 December 1926, Howe was Margaret Thatcher’s longest-serving Cabinet minister.
He successively held the posts of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary, and finally Leader of the House of Commons, deputy prime minister and Lord President of the Council.
His resignation on 1 November 1990 is widely considered to have precipitated Thatcher’s resignation three weeks later.
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Howe was educated at three independent schools: at Bridgend Preparatory School in Bryntirion, followed by Abberley Hall School in Worcestershire and by winning an exhibition to Winchester College in Hampshire.
A gifted classicist, Howe was offered an exhibition to Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1945, but first decided to join the army.
He did a six-month course in maths and physics. Then he did National Service as a lieutenant with the Royal Corps of Signals in East Africa, by his own account giving political lectures in Swahili about how Africans should avoid communism and remain loyal to “Bwana Kingy George”; and also climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.
He passed away on 9 October 2015, after a suspected heart attack.
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