Alexander Macmillan, 2nd Earl of Stockton


Alexander Daniel Alan Macmillan, 2nd Earl of Stockton is a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He is the eldest son of the Conservative politician Maurice Macmillan and grandson of prime minister Harold Macmillan.

Life

Lord Stockton was educated at Eton College, the University of Paris, and at Strathclyde University. He was a member of the European Parliament for South West England from 1999 to 2004. He was one of the hereditary peers to have been excluded from the House of Lords. He inherited his peerage from his grandfather, Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963, on his death at the end of 1986, as his father was already deceased.
He has been an unsuccessful candidate sixteen times in the by-elections held among hereditary peers for a seat in the House of Lords. Most notably, in 2007 he came third in a contest to replace Lord Mowbray, behind the winner, Lord Cathcart, and Lord Younger of Leckie; in the 2010 by-election to replace Lord Northesk, he came second behind Lord Younger of Leckie; in 2011 he lost to Lord Hanworth in a ballot for the seat of the deceased Lord Strabolgi; and in 2014 he lost out to the Earl of Oxford and Asquith.
At the May 2011 local council elections, Lord Stockton was elected as a Conservative councillor on South Bucks district council. Both his father Maurice Macmillan and his grandfather preceded him as Chairman of Macmillan Publishers Ltd., the publishing house long owned by the family. Stockton sold it to the German Holtzbrinck group. He ranked 253rd in the Sunday Times 2004 Rich List, with an estimated wealth of £165m.
Lord Stockton renovated Hayne Manor with his current wife in Devon and listed it for sale.
On 29 April 2002, Lord Stockton appeared alongside several other relatives of deceased former Prime Ministers, as well as then-Prime Minister Tony Blair and the four surviving former Prime Ministers at the time, for a dinner at Buckingham Palace which formed part of the celebrations for the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II.
Lord Stockton is Vice President of the Royal Crescent Society, Bath.

Marriages