page_title: John Major
section_title: Early post-school career (1959–1979)
hierarchical_section_title: John Major / Early post-school career (1959–1979)
caption_attribution_description: English: St Matthew&#39;s church, Brixton, near to Brixton, Lambeth, Great Britain. The parish church of Brixton was built in 1822 to the designs of C.F. Porden. St Matthew&#39;s and its churchyard (now a public park) stand on a triangle of land that forms a gyratory traffic system. The building is listed grade 2* (listed building no. 204008), but during the 1970&#39;s and 1980&#39;s the interior was significantly re-ordered to provide a range of community facilities, and following the financial collapse of that enterprise it was again refurbished in 1993-4. The basement is now a restaurant/nightclub, but part of the ground floor is still set aside as a parish church &lt;a href="https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1396612"&gt;TQ3075&#160;: St Matthew's church, Brixton - worship area&lt;/a&gt;.
context_page_description: Sir John Major KG CH is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. Major was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Foreign Secretary and then Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Thatcher Government from 1987 to 1990, and was Member of Parliament for Huntingdon from 1979 until his retirement in 2001. Since the death of Margaret Thatcher in 2013 he has been both the oldest and earliest-serving of all living former prime ministers.
  Born in St Helier, London, Major grew up in the South London suburbs of Worcester Park and later Brixton, a move necessitated by his family's worsening financial situation. Leaving school in 1959 with just three O-levels, Major worked in a variety of jobs, as well as enduring a period of unemployment, before eventually establishing a career in banking at Standard Bank. However Major's ambitions lay in politics, and after a period as a Councillor at Lambeth Council, he was elected to the House of Commons at the 1979 general election as MP for Huntingdon. He served as a Parliamentary Private Secretary, Assistant Whip and as a Minister for Social Security.
context_section_description: Major's first job was as a clerk in the London-based insurance brokerage firm Price Forbes in 1959, though finding the job dull and offering no prospects he quit. Major began working with his brother Terry at the garden ornaments business; this had been sold in 1959, enabling the family to move to a larger residence at 80 Burton Road, Brixton. Major's father died on 17 March 1962. John left the ornaments business the following year to care for his ill mother, though when she got better he was unable to find a new job and was unemployed for much of the latter half of 1962, a situation he says was "degrading." After Major became Prime Minister, it was misreported that his failure to get a job as a bus conductor resulted from his failing to pass a maths test; he had in fact passed all of the necessary tests but had been passed over owing to his height. In the meantime he studied for a qualification in Banking via correspondence course. Eventually in December 1962 he found a job working at the London Electricity Board (LEB) in Elephant and Castle.
  In 1959 Major had joined the Young Conservatives in Brixton and soon became a highly active member, which helped increase his confidence following the failure of his school days. Encouraged by fellow Conservative Derek Stone, he started giving speeches on a soap-box in Brixton Market. According to his biographer Anthony Seldon, Major brought "youthful exuberance" to the Tories in Brixton, but was sometimes in trouble with the professional agent Marion Standing. Major stood as a Councillor in the 1964 Lambeth London Borough Council election for Larkhall ward at the age of 21 in 1964, losing to Labour. He also assisted local Conservative candidates Kenneth Payne in the 1964 general election and Piers Dixon in the 1966 general election. Another formative influence on Major in this period was Jean Kierans, a divorcée 13 years his elder with two children who lived opposite the family on Burton Road, who became his mentor and lover. Seldon writes "She ... made Major smarten his appearance, groomed him politically, and made him more ambitious and worldly." Major later moved in with Kierans when his family left Burton Road in 1965; their relationship lasted from 1963 to sometime after 1968.
  Major left the LEB and took up a post at District Bank in May 1965, though he soon left this to join Standard Bank the following year, largely because the latter offered the chance to work abroad. In December 1966 he was sent for a long secondment in Jos, Nigeria which he enjoyed immensely, though he was put off by the casual racism of some of the ex-pat workers there. In May 1967 he was involved in a serious car crash in which he broke a leg and had to be flown home. Leaving hospital, he split his time between Jean Kierans' house and a small rented flat in Mayfair, working at Standard Bank's London office and resuming his banking diploma and activities with the Young Conservatives in his spare time.
  Major stood again as Councillor in the 1968 Lambeth London Borough Council election, this time for Ferndale ward. Though a Labour stronghold, the Conservatives received a huge boost following Enoch Powell's anti-immigration 'Rivers of Blood speech' in April 1968 and Major won, despite strongly disapproving of Powell's views. Major took a major interest in housing matters, with Lambeth notorious for overcrowding and poor quality rented accommodation. In February 1970 Major became Chairman of the Housing Committee, being responsible for overseeing the building of several large council estates. He also promoted more openness at the council, initiating a series of public meetings with local residents. Major also undertook fact-finding trips to the Netherlands, Finland and the Soviet Union. Despite the Lambeth housing team being well-regarded nationally, Major lost his seat in the 1971 Lambeth London Borough Council election.
  Major met Norma Johnson at a Conservative party event in Brixton in April 1970, and the two became engaged shortly thereafter, marrying at St Matthew's Church in Brixton on 3 October 1970. 
caption: St Matthew's Church, Brixton where John and Norma Major married in 1970.
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