Denis Thatcher (10 May 1915 – 26 June 2003) was a British businessman and the husband of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Biography[]
Thatcher in 1949
Denis Thatcher was born in Lewisham, London, England in 1915, and he joined the family paint and preservatives business at the age of 18. He served in the British Army through Operation Husky and the invasion of mainland Italy during World War II, reaching the rank of Major and two mentions in dispatches.
After the war, he took over the family business, and he married chemist and Conservative Party parliamentary candidate Margaret Roberts in 1951. Their marriage was more of a mutual convenience than a romance, with both of them being successful in their realms; Denis became a wealthy businessman, while Margaret became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. However, he saw his job as being to help his wife survive the stress of her job, and he was supportive of her during her tenure. Thatcher called himself an "honest-to-god right-winger", and he opposed the death penalty, the BBC, socialism, and trade unions. Denis Thatcher died in 2003, ten years before his wife.