Major was Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997 and held the posts of Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Cabinet of Margaret Thatcher.

He was named Leader of the Conservative Party on 27 November 1990, and was summoned to Buckingham Palace and appointed Prime Minister the following day.

On 22 June 1995, tired of continual threats of leadership challenges that never arose, Major resigned as Leader of the Conservative Party and announced he would contest the resulting leadership election – he continued to serve as Prime Minister while the leadership was vacant, but would have resigned had he not been re-elected by a large enough majority.

Following his resignation as Prime Minister, Major briefly became Leader of the Opposition, and Shadow Foreign Secretary ( as Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who was Foreign Secretary prior to the election, had lost his seat ), and remained in this post until the election of William Hague as leader of the Conservative Party in June 1997.

While Progressive Conservative Leader Joe Clark rebuffed the notion, the talks moved ahead and eventually in December 2003, the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative parties voted to rejoin into a new party called the Conservative Party of Canada.

Gladstone is famous for his oratory, for his rivalry with the Conservative Leader Benjamin Disraeli and his poor relations with Queen Victoria, who once complained, " He always addresses me as if I were a public meeting.

* July 27 – Edward Heath becomes Leader of the British Conservative Party.

Sir Edward Richard George " Ted " Heath, KG, MBE, PC ( 9 July 1916 – 17 July 2005 ) was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom ( 1970 – 74 ) and as Leader of the Conservative Party ( 1965 – 75 ).

Despite Conservative hopes, the first GLC consisted of 64 Labour and 36 Conservative councillors and Labour Group leader Bill Fiske became the first Leader of the Council.

Soon after Harold Wilson's Labour Party returned to government, Heath appointed Whitelaw as Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Chairman of the Conservative Party.

He was Leader of the House of Lords when Harold Macmillan, the Prime Minister, announced his sudden resignation for health reasons at the start of the 1963 Conservative Party conference.

Macleod greatly accelerated decolonisation and by the time he was moved to Conservative Party Chairman and Leader of the Commons in 1961 he had made the decision to give independence to Nigeria, Tanganyika, Kenya, Nyasaland ( as Malawi ) and Northern Rhodesia ( as Zambia ).

The Leader of the Opposition is Cllr Ashley Lumsden ( Liberal Democrat ) and the Leader of the Conservative Opposition is Cllr John Whelan.

The Conservative Party currently lead a minority administration in South Ayrshire, with Bill McKintosh as Leader of the Council and Winifred Sloan as Provost.

After a brief period of Conservative minority government, the Earl of Aberdeen became Prime Minister in a coalition government of Whigs and Peelites ( with Russell taking the role of Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons ).

However, since this business included Prime Minister's Question Time, Conservative Leader, at the time, William Hague was deprived of the opportunity of a high-profile confrontation with the Prime Minister.

Following his election as Leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron established a " Democracy Taskforce " chaired by Kenneth Clarke.

Michael Howard, Baron Howard of Lympne, CH, PC, QC, ( born 7 July 1941 ) is a British politician, who served as the Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from November 2003 to December 2005.

Although he was a major figure in the protectionist wing of the Conservative Party after 1844, Disraeli's relations with the other leading figures in the party, particularly Lord Derby, the overall leader, were often strained.

An alliance of pro free-trade Conservatives ( the " Peelites "), Radicals, and Whigs carried repeal, and the Conservative Party split: the Peelites moved towards the Whigs, while a " new " Conservative Party formed around the protectionists, led by Disraeli, Bentinck, and Lord Stanley ( later Lord Derby ).

Lord George Bentinck, Conservative leader in the commons 1846 – 48

Lord Palmerston's government collapsed in 1858 amid public fallout over the Orsini affair and Derby took office at the head of a purely ' Conservative ' administration.

This act was unpopular with the right wing of the Conservative Party, most notably Lord Cranborne ( later the Marquess of Salisbury ), who resigned from the government and spoke against the bill, accusing Disraeli of " a political betrayal which has no parallel in our Parliamentary annals.

The conversion of the Conservative Party into a modern mass organisation was accelerated by the concept of Tory Democracy attributed to Lord Randolph Churchill, father of Britain's wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

In 1841, he left Parliament and didn't return to politics until 1852 ; this time, having differed from the policy of Lord John Russell over the Corn Laws, he stood for Hertfordshire as a Conservative.

Lord Stonehaven ( as John Baird ) was Minister for Transport in the Cabinets of Andrew Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin ; and after his return to Britain he became Chairman of the UK Conservative Party.

George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen ( 28 January 1784 – 14 December 1860 ), styled Lord Haddo from 1791 to 1801, was a British politician and landowner, successively a Tory, Conservative and Peelite, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1852 until 1855.

Lord Aberdeen as the leader of the Peelites was one of 38 Peelites elected to members of Parliament independently of the Tory / Conservative Party.

Following the downfall of the Tory / Conservative minority government under Lord Derby in December 1852, Lord Aberdeen formed a new government from the coalition of Free Traders, Peelites and Whigs that had voted no confidence in the minority government.

From the mid-century there were increasing calls for Home Rule for Scotland and when the Conservative Lord Salisbury became prime minister in 1885 he responded to pressure by reviving the post of Secretary of State for Scotland, which had been in abeyance since 1746.

Historians portray Conservative prime Minister Lord Salisbury ( 1830 – 1903 ) as a talented leader who was an icon of traditional, aristocratic conservatism.

The Conservative Party had to replace Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare as their candidate when he was charged with perjury ; Steve Norris was elected as his replacement.

In vain, the King urged Conservative leaders Balfour and Lord Lansdowne to pass the Budget ( Lord Esher advised that this was not unusual, as Queen Victoria had helped to broker agreement between the two Houses over Irish disestablishment in 1869 and the Third Reform Act in 1884 ), although on Asquith's advice he did not offer them an election ( at which, to judge from recent by-elections, they were likely to gain seats ) as a reward for doing so.

" was quoted with regard to Lord Cranborne, a contemporary member of the Cecil family who, in 1998, was dismissed from his Conservative Party office in the House of Lords for conducting unauthorised negotiations with the Labour government.

In 1987 he was nominated in the election for the Chancellorship of the University of Oxford but lost to Roy Jenkins as a result of splitting the Conservative vote with Lord Blake.

After the 1970 General Election, new Conservative Prime Minister Ted Heath appointed Lord Jellicoe in Lord Shackleton's place.

Disraeli's efforts over the past two years had dispelled, for the time being, any doubts about him succeeding Derby as leader of the Conservative Party and therefore Prime Minister.

Accordingly, the Tory / Conservative Party leader the Earl of Derby was asked to form a " minority government.

( The Conservative Lord Derby was prime minister of the United Kingdom at the time.

His younger brother and successor, Frederick Arthur Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby, was a Conservative politician and held office as Secretary of State for War, as Colonial Secretary and as President of the Board of Trade.

However the minority Conservative government under the Earl of Derby was short lived and in December 1852, the Derby minority fell in another " no confidence vote.

His second premiership was short and frustrating, and Russell failed in his great ambition of expanding the franchise-a task that would be left to his Conservative successors, Derby and Benjamin Disraeli.

Edward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, KG, PC ( 29 March 1799 – 23 October 1869 ) was an English statesman, three times Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and to date the longest serving leader of the Conservative Party.

On 28 February a meeting of the Carlton Club took place, with a majority of the 150 Conservative MPs present supporting Derby and Disraeli.

In his article for the October Quarterly Review, entitled ‘ The Conservative Surrender ’, Cranborne criticised Derby because he had " obtained the votes which placed him in office on the faith of opinions which, to keep office, he immediately repudiated ... He made up his mind to desert these opinions at the very moment he was being raised to power as their champion ".

He was a Conservative politician and served under the Earl of Derby and Benjamin Disraeli as Under-Secretary of State for War from 1866 to 1868.

He held office in the first two Conservative administrations of the Earl of Derby as Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Master of the Buckhounds and was also Lord Lieutenant of Huntingdonshire.

He was born to Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, who led the Conservative Party from 1846 – 1868 and served as Prime Minister three times, and Emma Caroline Bootle-Wilbraham, daughter of Edward Bootle-Wilbraham, 1st Baron Skelmersdale, and was the older brother of Frederick Arthur Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby.

This played a part in Gladstone's resignation, the election of the Conservative Derby government and Disraeli's Second Reform Act.

Most of the new housing was for middle-class areas near Derby and contained mostly Conservative voters.

When Lord Derby died in 1869, Cairns became the leader of the Conservative opposition in the House of Lords.

The next year, Benjamin Disraeli succeeded Derby as Prime Minister, but the Conservative government resigned later in 1868, and the Liberals came to power under Gladstone.