Antony Head, 1st Viscount Head

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Antony Henry Head, 1st Viscount Head GCMG CBE MC PC (19061983) was a British Member of Parliament, peer and statesman.

Head was educated at Eton College and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He was a career soldier, joining the 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars and later the Life Guards, serving through World War II and achieving the rank of Brigadier. Head was elected Conservative MP for Carshalton in 1945. He served as Secretary of State for War from 1951 to 1956, in the Cabinets of Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden. He was made a Viscount in 1960.

He married Lady Dorothea Louise Ashley-Cooper, daughter of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 9th Earl of Shaftesbury, on 23 July 1935. They had four children:

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
(new constituency)
Member of Parliament for Carshalton
1945–1960
Succeeded by
Walter Elliot
Political offices
Preceded by
John Strachey
War Secretary
1951–1956
Succeeded by
Viscount Blakenham
Preceded by
Walter Monckton
Minister of Defence
1956–1957
Succeeded by
Duncan Sandys
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
New creation
Viscount Head Succeeded by
Richard Head
Languages