Howe, Sir Geoffrey (1926-2015), a Conservative Party politician, was deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1989 to 1990. He had been foreign secretary since 1983. Before that, Howe had been solicitor general from 1970 to 1972, minister for trade and consumer affairs from 1972 to 1974, and chancellor of the exchequer (the country’s chief financial officer) from 1979 to 1983.
Richard Edward Geoffrey Howe was born in Port Talbot, West Glamorgan, Wales, on Dec. 20, 1926. He was educated at Winchester College and Cambridge University. After military service, he became a barrister, a lawyer qualified to argue cases in the United Kingdom’s highest courts. Howe was first elected to Parliament in 1964. He received a life peerage in 1992, taking the title Lord Howe of Aberavon. Howe died on Oct. 9, 2015.
