1926 Richard Edward Geoffrey Howe was born in Port Talbot in south Wales on December 20 to Charles, an economist, solicitor and local coroner, and Gwyneth. His grandfather had been a loyal trade unionist.

1944 He left Winchester College and joined the Army, serving as a signals officer in Kenya where he learned Swahili.

1948 He turned down the opportunity to stay in the army and went to Cambridge where he read law and dabbled in politics, eventually becoming the chair of the university’s Conservative Association.

1951 Howe founded the Bow Group, Britain’s oldest Conservative think tank.

1952 He was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple and practiced in Wales, specialising in industrial accident cases, but politics still beckoned. He served as Council of the Bar from 1957 to 1961, and was a council member of Justice.

1953 Howe married Elspeth Shand, who enjoyed a distinguished career in her own right and was sometimes reckoned the driving force behind her husband’s ambitions. They had a son and two daughters.

1958 He co-authored a report called A Giant’s Strength which argued that the trade unions were far too influential and that their power should be curtailed.

1964 Howe entered Parliament as the member for the marginal constituency of Bebington, on the Wirral, but lost the seat two years later due to boundary changes.

1970 Howe won the safe Conservative seat of Reigate as the party returned to power under Edward Heath. He was knighted the same year and appointed solicitor general.

1972 Howe became minister of state at the Department of Trade and Industry with a seat in the cabinet.

1974 Howe won the seat of East Surrey.

1975 He surprised many when he entered the race to replace Heath in the 1975 Conservative leadership election. He got 19 votes.

1979 Margaret Thatcher gained power and appointed Howe chancellor of the exchequer.

1983 Howe moved to the Foreign Office, upsetting the opposition by banning trade union membership at GCHQ in Cheltenham. He was Foreign Secretary for six years, the longest tenure since the First World War.

1989 In June, Howe and his successor as Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, secretly threatened to both resign over Thatcher’s opposition to British membership in the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System. In the following month, the then little-known John Major was unexpectedly appointed to replace Howe as Foreign Secretary.

1990 Due to their fundamental differences when it came to EU politics, Thatcher and Howe’s relations became frosty. Howe resigned from the Cabinet in November, in the aftermath of the Prime Minister's position at the Rome European Council meeting the previous weekend, at which she had declared for the first time that Britain would never enter a single currency, and the next day after her famous "No. No. No." speech.

1992 Howe retired from the House of Commons in 1992 and was made a life peer in June. He published his memoirs soon after.

2005 Howe gave a generous speech about Thatcher’s achievements to mark her 80th birthday. The events of 1990, he explained later, “could not wipe out 15 years of close comradeship”.