The youngest British prime minister of the 20th century, John Major (born 1943) succeeded Margaret Thatcher as leader of the Conservative Party and political head of the United Kingdom in 1990, a post he held until 1997.

John Major had a highly unusual background for a Conservative Party leader. Born on March 29, 1943, in the middle-class London suburb of Merton, he was the son of Gwendolyn and Thomas Major. Thomas Major, 66 when his son was born, was a colorful man who had a remarkably varied career as a circus acrobat, vaudevillian, mercenary, and manufacturer of garden ornaments. When John Major was very young, the family lived in comfortable circumstances, and he attended Rutlish Grammar School, a state-run school for bright children. When Major was 11, however, the family moved to Brixton, the so-called "South Bronx of London," after Thomas Major's business suffered financial reverses.

Young Major disliked the authoritarian atmosphere of school and...