Hague, << hayg, >> William (1961-…), a British politician, served as leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party from 1997 to 2001. When he was elected to the post, at the age of 36, he became the party’s youngest leader since 1783, when William Pitt the Younger assumed leadership of the party, then called the Tory Party, at the age of 24. Hague initiated a series of reforms of the Conservative Party, which had recently lost power to the opposition Labour Party. When Labour won again in elections in 2001, Hague resigned his post. In 2010, after Conservative David Cameron became prime minister, Hague was named secretary of state for foreign and Commonwealth affairs. He resigned from the post in 2014.
Hague was elected to the House of Commons in 1989. He held a variety of posts within the British government. From 1995 to 1997, he served in the Cabinet of Prime Minister John Major as secretary of state for Wales.
William Jefferson Hague was born in Rotherham, England. In 1977, when he was only 16 years old, Hague made a well-regarded speech at a Conservative Party conference. Hague was educated at Oxford University and at the INSEAD business school in France. In 1981, while at Oxford, he served as president of the Oxford Union, a student union and debating society.
