Talk:Spouse of the prime minister of the United Kingdom

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First sentence[edit]

The first sentence looks a bit odd, starting by saying what the PM's spouse isn't, and doing so by reference to the U.S. first lady. This is not really a useful comparison because the PM doesn't fulfil the same role as the U.S. president. Also, by the current wording, there might be an inference that they are always women. Trouble is, I can't really suggest how to improve it. The title pretty much describes the role! Bluewave 17:59, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hannah Primrose, Countess of Rosebery[edit]

Lady Rosebery was never a prime-minister's spouse, she died four years before he attained that office. Giano 08:25, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]


This is actually a list of all prime ministers and their spouses. It is pedantry to exclude spouses who never set foot in downing street, or some other arbitrary rule. In order to get a rounded view of the prime ministers we need this simple list of all spouses (and life partners if any emerge). It is arguably much more informative to know that walpole's wives died 'in office', whilst rosebury and macdonald were grieving widowers, rosebury beneficiently wealthy beyond measure and macdonald in penury trying to also raise and employ his family. Ergo - Hannah de R should be included in this list and the succession boxes, annotated to clarify the detail. Autodidactyl 19:46, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fine but she was never a Prime Minister's wife that should be made clear. Giano 19:55, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cleanup needed[edit]

There's quite a lot that makes this article a mess:

1). UK ministers are never numbered in any official sense, and to use one is POV and unnecessary.

2). Most people would associate "Spouse of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom" with a person married to the PM whilst in office. Previously deceased wives, divorced wives, later remarriages etc... are worth a sidenote mention, but shouldn't be included in a list of incumbents.

3). Very few of these women are ever referred to by their maiden names (Cherie Blair's professional career is very much the exception) and some have had several names in their lives (e.g. Norma Major). It does feel like an American convention being applied to a list of Britons. And this application is currently very inconsistent. Plus the nav boxes that I can see are using generally their names as people knew them at the time (although not always grasping how the peerage works).

4). By the same measure, I think listing peerage titles that the women didn't hold at the time their husbands were in office (off the top of my head Joan Canning and Clementine Churchill - Mary Disraeli is a more convoluted case as from recollection she was conferred the title after her husband left office the first time but died before he returned to power) is a recipe for confusion. Maybe mention it in a notes section, but I think only those who had titles in Downing Street should be mentioned (I think Hester Pitt, 1st Baroness Chatham is the only one).

5). I'm also not sure alternative "hostesses" is at all workable. It again feels like an attempt to translate the US position of First Lady into a country where it doesn't exist at all formally. (And some Prime Ministers didn't reside at the formal residence - e.g. Harold Wilson in his second term - or just treated it as a workplace.)

I can make a start on this over the next few days but don't want to tamper with the table syntax - anyone bold enough to? Timrollpickering 21:11, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Further cleanup and categorisation[edit]

Both this page and Category:Spouses of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom will need to be in accord as to which women (and one man) do and don't fit the definition of "spouse of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom".

Because the post is in no way official, there are various different criteria that can be applied which produce different lists.

As a starting point, and following a similar practice at Talk:First Lady of the United States, here's a list of all the possible candidates since 1902 (to keep the list managable, but I'll come back to the 18th and the 19th centuries later):

a) Living spouses of sitting PMs

The easiest ones to define:

The PM's spouse by any definition.

b) Deceased spouses

The following died before their husbands first took office:

Both are categorised but not listed here. I don't think either would normally be listed.

c) Divorced spouses

Anthony Eden was the only Prime Minister to have divorced. Listing Beatrice Beckett as a PM's spouse would feel strange.

d) Later remarriages

David Lloyd George married again in 1943, long after leaving office. Including Frances Stevenson as a PM's spouse again feels strange.

There are more examples of many of these with the earlier period but what are people's thoughts? I'd be inclined to regard only the ones listed under a) as "spouse of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom" and not include the rest in the category or list them here. Timrollpickering 15:04, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well I have tried to clear up the table. I inserted the "Notes" section, so we can get round these problems. Any wives who died before their husband came to power can be put in the notes section, so its clear she was dead when he did come to power. With divorce, could be worth a mention in "Notes" as could later remarriages. --UpDown 15:10, 21 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pruning those under b), c) and d) from the category. Timrollpickering 10:17, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
With regard to (c), correction - Eden was only the second PM to have divorced - the Duke of Grafton divorced his first wife while in office in 1769, I have introduced her into the table, and declared the period he spent as a divorcee before he remarried in the same year.Cloptonson (talk) 11:46, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Article locations[edit]

Please see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (names and titles)#Naming conventions for wives of peers and knights for discussion that could lead to some of the individual articles being renamed. Timrollpickering 19:30, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Opening paragraph[edit]

Can we please ditch the opening paragraph? It's misleading, it's factually wrong, and it serves only to confuse the reader.

The spouse of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has no formal or constitutional role in the British political system.

True, but mentioning it here implies that this situation is somewhat unusual. Of the numerous countries in the world that have Prime Ministers, do any of them have a formal or constitutional role for the Prime Minister's spouse?


This is partly a reflection of the fact that the British Prime Minister is not the head of state (see British Monarchy).

Red herring, really. The spouses of most heads of state don't have formal or constitutional roles, except where the head of state is a monarch.


The role of the British Prime Minister is sometimes compared with that of the President of the United States but, whilst the American First Lady has a number of responsibilities and usually their own staff, the same is not true of the spouse of the Prime Minister.

"First Lady" is an informal title, according to the First Lady of the United States article, and there are no official duties attached to the role. Besides, the First Lady isn't necessarily the spouse of the President. 217.155.20.163 22:24, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

False comparison[edit]

I see my edit has been reverted. A few words of explanation...I described the comparison with the wife of a US preesident as a "false comparison" because (as the article itself makes clear) the US president is a head of state whereas the British PM is not. I therefore believe that the article is misleading to say that the "equivalent in the United States of America, [is] the President's spouse". The equivalence is between the monarch and the president, not the PM and the president. I further think that the statement that "it is sometimes suggested that the term 'Second Lady' be used" is plain nonsense. Who has ever made that suggestion? Any other views?Bluewave (talk) 18:33, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal for the intro[edit]

There have been various attempts to improve the intro section, some of which I've contributed to in the past, but it still does not look very good. There is a proposal above to delete the first paragraph, and my problems noted above regarding the last paragraph. I think the problem lies in the fact that much of the intro is either explicitly or implicitly making some kind of comparison with American "First ladies" which is not really very helpful. One problem is that, as far as I'm aware, the term "first lady" isn't really used in the UK (except to refer to the wife of a US president). One could certainly argue that the Queen is the first lady, but she's never referred to as that. On looking at this whole intro again, I would propose the radical option of deleting the whole lot, with the exception of the third paragraph. Any other views on this one? Bluewave (talk) 12:59, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, no-one seems interested in this except me, so I'll make the edit. To reiterate, the concerns with the current intro are:

  1. "The spouse of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has no formal or constitutional role in the British political system." This seems to imply that spouses of PMs in other countries DO have a formal role (not generally true).
  2. "While the equivalent in the United States of America, the President's spouse...." Not true. The PM is not a president or a head of state. The PM's spouse is not "equivalent" to the First Lady.
  3. "The Queen is the first lady of the realm." I understand the logic, but this is unsourced and I've certainly never heard her referred to as such. Has anything official from the Govt, Palace, etc ever called her that? To call anyone other than the Queen "first lady" would clearly be an insult to the Queen, but that doesn't mean that she's ever referred to in those terms.
  4. The "First Gentleman" is HRH The Duke of Edinburgh." Again rather dubious. The term is not used in the UK as far as I know.
  5. "It is sometimes suggested that the term 'Second Lady' be used." Is it? By whom?
  6. "The second lady of the realm [is] HRH The Duchess of Cornwall (likewise the second gentleman being HRH The Prince of Wales)." Again unsourced. When are they ever referred to thus?

Bluewave (talk) 09:16, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There was some use of the term "first lady" for Cherie Blair in 1997-8 by various government spokespersons and it did attract criticism on the basis that a) the first lady is the Queen (although I only recall a few people making this explicit, though I think it was once raised at Prime Minister's Questions); and b) US style spouses, particularly obnoxious pushy ones on the Hillary Clinton model, are alien to the UK. Timrollpickering (talk) 10:43, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I'm sure that, in answer to a question at PMQ about who was the first lady in the realm, the answer would be the Queen. But that's saying that if you had to describe someone, using that terminology, she would be the person you'd pick. That's not the same as suggesting that there's any currency in the description of the Queen as "first lady" (nor the Duchess of Cornwall as "second lady"). I was concerned that the intro seemed to muddy the water rather than clarifying it, with all the talk of first ladies. Have you got a better suggestion for an intro? Bluewave (talk) 11:26, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
4. There is no such thing as a "first gentleman" in the U.K., but even if there were, it would certainly not be the Duke of Edinburgh, who was of noble, not gentle, birth (and is certainly now of noble status). On a wider point, why does this article even exist? There is no such office as "spouse of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom", and quite frankly it's a bit insulting to lump all these people together. With apologies, it's a bit 'too American' for the British system. Sure, let them have individual articles based upon their personal merits and achievements, but to stick them in a group like this is a bit demeaning, no? 137.222.231.37 (talk) 23:18, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's no such title as "Spouse of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom"[edit]

There is no such category known to the UK Constitution and I can't think what this article is for. If it's meant as a useful list for the curious (in search, maybe, of material for a pub quiz) then I suggest you re-title it as something like "UK Prime Ministers' Husbands and Wives" - which sounds considerably less formal. I should say that I got here from the entry on Clem Attlee, which described Violet, his wife, as having the title of "Spouse of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom" - which I thought extremely odd.Kranf (talk) 22:11, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree but low case "Husband and wives of the prime minsters or the United Kingdom" -- PBS (talk) 13:23, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In the mean time remove the first sentence. "The Spouse of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is the wife or husband of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom." as it is a tautology and if needed to explain the word spouse then the move of page is required. The article can start "There have been 44 women and one man who have been married to British Prime Ministers whilst in office". There is no need for "To date". -- PBS (talk) 13:23, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I am unsure in regard to the justification of placing "Husbands" before "Wives" - alphabetical? he before she? - chronologically there were a lot of wives before there was a husband. GregKaye 14:57, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed the first sentence as it is indeed a tautology, while the boldface suggests that "Spouse of the Prime Minister" is a constitutional title. FNAS (talk) 09:59, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Honours[edit]

Various Prime Ministers' spouses received honours that gave them postnominal abbreviations (eg DBE). Is there a consensus as to how the awards are mentioned (in the last column of the table)? Of those whose honours are mentioned, some had received them during their spouse's tenure (eg Margaret Lloyd George), others had been awarded them when their husbands had ceased to hold office, while others had been awarded them before their husbands began office. Of spouses whose awards are currently not mentioned on this table, I have found the Marchioness of Salisbury was a CI and VA, Lucy Baldwin was a DBE and Dorothy Macmillan a GBE, while the only husband, Denis Thatcher, gained the MBE and TD in wartime military service.Cloptonson (talk) 20:26, 26 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Propose changes to: List of spouses of British Prime Ministers[edit]

At present this section presents:

Prime Minister Term Spouse Notes
Sir Robert Walpole
The Earl of Orford (1742) 		4 April 1721 – 20 August 1737 Lady Walpole
(Catherine Shorter) 		Walpole's first wife, she died in 1737.
20 August 1737 – c. 3 March 1738 None Widower
c. 3 March – 4 June 1738 Lady Walpole
(Maria Skerrett) 		Walpole's second wife, she died in childbirth in 1738.
4 June 1738 – 11 February 1742 None Widower
... ... ... ...
Margaret Thatcher
later The Baroness Thatcher 		4 May 1979 – 28 November 1990 Mr. Thatcher
(Denis Thatcher)
later Sir Denis Thatcher, Bt. 		First male spouse. Mr. Thatcher's second marriage. The Baronetcy of Thatcher of Scotney was awarded to him in 1992.
John Major
later Sir John Major 		28 November 1990 – 2 May 1997 Mrs. Major
(Norma Johnson)
later Dame Norma Major,
Lady Major 		Created Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1999
Tony Blair 2 May 1997 – 27 June 2007 Mrs. Blair
(Cherie Booth)
Gordon Brown 27 June 2007 – 11 May 2010 Mrs. Brown
(Sarah Jane Macaulay)
David Cameron 11 May 2010 – Mrs. Cameron
(Samantha Sheffield)

I would suggest, by some means, moving the third column to first position perhaps while also merging the third and fourth columns together. The article is about spouses of Prime Ministers and not the Prime Ministers' spouses. I am also wondering about all the Mrs. and Mr. references. My gut reaction is that names should be used in relation to identity but was surprised by results:

"Samantha Cameron" AND ("David Cameron" OR "10 Downing Street" OR (wife AND "prime minister")) gets to "Page 33 of 322 results" in news

GregKaye 15:34, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Formation date in infobox[edit]

I cannot understand the appearance of a 'Formation date' of 1789 in the infobox - there was no organisation of Prime Ministerial spouses, and there were married Prime Ministers before 1789, beginning with Robert Walpole the first PM.Cloptonson (talk) 11:52, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 6 August 2017[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved to Spouse of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. However, I will create List of spouses of prime ministers of the United Kingdom as a redirect since it seems helpful as a redirect. (non-admin closure) Steel1943 (talk) 03:38, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

List of spouses of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom → List of spouses of prime ministers of the United Kingdom – See also prior informal discussion of 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2017. This is not a formal title. Also, "spouses of the Prime Minister" appears to refer to plural spouses of a single prime minister, which is probably not the intended interpretation. In the plural form, lowercase seems appropriate, although I'm more focused on the pluralization than the capitalization at the moment. —BarrelProof (talk) 15:59, 6 August 2017 (UTC)--Relisting. —usernamekiran(talk) 08:16, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

New design of page[edit]

For consensus, the page with images which has since been reverted is a favourable choice because it is not only aesthetically better, but also mirrors that of other pages for the 'Spouse of the Prime Minister of Australia/New Zealand/Canada'. Personally I feel this is a better design. Please give your views. TomPumpkin69 16:25, March 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate the effort you put in but there were just too many inaccuracies in your redesign. Firstly, Lady Walpole wasn't "56 years, 61 days" old when her husband became prime minister. Secondly, Walpole certainly did not marry his second wife on 4 March 1797 (he was long dead by then). Also I don't think we should be including spouses who were deceased or no longer married to their husband when they became prime minister. However, I agree that the current design is inadequate. I'm currently preparing a draft in my sandbox of a design based on Spouse of the Prime Minister of Canada.--Neve~selbert 20:12, 9 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your feedback, If I recreated the page correcting these inaccuracies, do you reckon it would make for a better format?TomPumpkin69 16:36, March 2018 (UTC)

The design was good, but as Neveselbert pointed out there were some inaccuracies. Have any of you created a new draft for this page by any chance? Keivan.fTalk 23:21, 20 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I am currently working on one at my sandbox, though I've been unable to update it lately due to other commitments. I should be able to continue actively working on it by next month. There were indeed a number of inaccuracies over dates, so I'm currently compiling sources before I continue with the draft.--Neve~selbert 16:30, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
 Completed new design a couple of days ago, which had been inspired by the layout at Spouse of the Prime Minister of Canada. So today, I have implemented the newly-formatted table from my sandbox, wherein I spent the last couple days double-checking for any inaccuracies over dates etc. I have also added sources for each spouse listed.--Neve~selbert 16:08, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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Living Spouses of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom[edit]

As of June 2018, there are five living former Spouse of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, as identified below.

Above is a proposal for this section on the page. Personally I feel this is a decent layout as it matches the formats of the same pages of the spouses of the Prime Minister of Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Opinions: TP69 14:40, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Frances Stevenson[edit]

Would it not be worth including some kind of footnote or sub-entry to say that, whilst in England, Lloyd George lived more or less openly with his secretary Frances Stevenson? More than one biographer has, I think, observed that Lloyd George was a bigamist in all but law.

It used to be not uncommon until very recently for MPs to live with their secretaries in London during the week whilst the wife minded the constituency. Lloyd George put people's backs up by being so blatant about it.

I appreciate we don't want to be listing every known affair of every Prime Minister, but Frances was a notable person in her own right (and an important eyewitness to her times as a diarist and recipient of letters from Lloyd George) and he eventually married her over 20 years later, c1943, after Dame Margaret had died.

(I think it was AJP Taylor who observed that Lloyd George was the first Prime Minister since the eighteenth century either to blatantly enrich himself in office or to live openly with his mistress).Paulturtle (talk) 00:37, 1 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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Marina Wheeler[edit]

Boris Johnson has officially divorced Marina Wheeler according to several articles published at the start of May - why is Wheeler still the incumbent? Ciaran.london (talk) 10:01, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 8 November 2020[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus for this move (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 21:36, 16 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]


– All article titles that talk about this topic are capitalized this way. See search suggestions when typing Spouse of the. Interstellarity (talk) 22:55, 8 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support per WP:TITLECON with Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 06:53, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. WP:JOBTITLES is clear about this: since the title is preceded by a modifier (the definite article), it should not be capitalized. Capitalizing this would go against virtually every major style guide in the world, e.g. the Oxford Manual of Style, the AP Stylebook, Chicago, etc. Instead, consider moving the other articles to the correct titles. Surtsicna (talk) 07:36, 9 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose per Surtsicna: "Spouse of the prime minister of the United Kingdom" is not a formal title, and neither is "the prime minister of the United Kingdom". If I understand correctly, Boris Johnson is Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, but he is only the current prime minister of the United Kingdom among many people who have previously been a prime minister of the United Kingdom. Move the other ones instead. — BarrelProof (talk) 12:44, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per lame rationale. WP does not copy style from sources that use title case. Dicklyon (talk) 03:18, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Vacancies between successors/predecessors in infoboxes[edit]

Does anyone have a view on the style to be used in infoboxes when there are gaps between spouses (i.e. where the role is not filled because the PM is a widower or unmarried)? This article makes a note of when there was no spouse, but there is not a completely consistent style with the infoboxes. I ask because there have been several changes to the style used in Marina Wheeler and Carrie Johnson's articles recently. Of the others, most say "Vacant" without further detail (Mary Grey, Countess Grey; Catherine Gladstone; Margot Asquith; Margaret Lloyd George; Lucy Baldwin), one says vacant with a note (Mary Wilson, Baroness Wilson of Rievaulx, with the note stating the next/previous PM was unmarried), one lists the next/previous spouses without mention of the gaps (Emily Temple, Viscountess Palmerston*), and one uses multiple styles (Charlotte Campbell-Bannerman's predecessor field says vacant without a note, while her successor field is filled but with mention of the year the succession occurred). Should I assume that means the consensus is to just use "vacant" with no further details? I don't think that is satisfactory and think the year should be mentioned (like Campbell-Bannerman's successor field, or the U.S. Second Ladies Lady Bird Johnson, Muriel Humphrey, Grace Coolidge, Caro Dawes, Mariette Rheiner Garner) or at least have a note after "vacant".
*The Countess of Aberdeen was listed as her first predecessor, however both the countesses died before their husband even became PM and thus were never spouses of the PM – so for now I have changed that to say vacant with a note stating his wives were deceased. Abbyjjjj96 (talk) 01:35, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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"Living former spouses"[edit]

Why do the living spouses of former prime ministers need to be singled out and listed twice, both in the List of spouses section and the (terribly named) Living former spouses section? Why should all that information (names, spouses' names, "tenure", dates of birth, and age) be duplicated in this article? Surtsicna (talk) 22:42, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I fully agree and am glad you removed this. I recommend doing the same on all other list articles for spouses of world leaders, to make sure none remain. --92.15.144.174 (talk) 13:04, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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