Kenneth Clarke
British politician (born 1940)
Kenneth Harry Clarke, Baron Clarke of Nottingham (born 2 July 1940) is a British politician who served in two of the Great Offices of State, as Home Secretary from 1992 to 1993 and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1993 to 1997. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Rushcliffe from 1970 to 2019, serving as Father of the House of Commons between 2017 and 2019. Clarke served in the Cabinets of Margaret Thatcher and John Major as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster from 1987 to 1988, Health Secretary from 1988 to 1990, and Education Secretary from 1990 to 1992.
President of the Tory Reform Group since 1997, Clarke is a one-nation conservative who identifies with economically and socially liberal views. He contested the Conservative Party leadership three times—in 1997, 2001 and 2005—being defeated each time. Opinion polls indicated he was more popular with the general public than with his party, whose generally Eurosceptic stance did not chime with his pro-European views. Under the coalition government of David Cameron, Clarke returned to the Cabinet as Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor from 2010 to 2012 and Minister without Portfolio from 2012 to 2014. He was also the United Kingdom Anti-Corruption Champion from 2010 to 2014.
The Conservative Whip was withdrawn from him in September 2019 because he and 20 other MPs voted with the Opposition on a motion; for the remainder of his time in Parliament he sat as an independent, though still on the government benches. He stood down as an MP at the 2019 general election and was thereafter made a Conservative life peer in the House of Lords in 2020.
“Kenneth Clarke” enters the record as british politician (born 1940). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Kenneth, Clarke and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Kenneth Clarke” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Kenneth, Clarke and British provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q271889. The first chronological checks are 1940, 1992, 1993 and 1997.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Kenneth Clarke”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Kenneth Clarke primary sources, Kenneth Clarke archive and Kenneth research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Kenneth Clarke”?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Kenneth Clarke” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.