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80 free Margaret Thatcher trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Margaret Thatcher trivia quiz follows the whole arc of Britain's first woman prime minister: the shopkeeper's daughter from Lincolnshire, the Oxford science student taught by a future Nobel laureate, the young lawyer and mother who twice lost a Kent seat, the minister nicknamed Milk Snatcher, the outsider who toppled her own party leader in 1975, and the prime minister who never lost a general election, fought a war in the South Atlantic, broke the miners' strike and was finally forced out by her own cabinet in November 1990. The easy questions cover the outline: her birthplace, her degree subject, the Iron Lady nickname, the Falklands, the poll tax and the man who succeeded her. The harder half is for people who have read Charles Moore or John Campbell: the company that called her 'headstrong, obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated', her only scientific paper, the Vermin Club, the ministry of her first frontbench job, the voice coach arranged through a famous actor, the playwright behind 'the lady's not for turning', the man who ran the Coal Board, the stalking-horse challenger of 1989, and exactly how many votes short she fell in 1990. Every answer was checked against Margaret Thatcher's encyclopaedia entry before publishing. If you enjoy this, try our Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabeth II and British prime ministers quizzes next.
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Q 01In which Lincolnshire town was Margaret Roberts born in October 1925?
Grantham
She and her elder sister Muriel were raised in the flat above the family shops on North Parade.
Q 02What kind of business did her father Alfred Roberts, an alderman and lay preacher, run?
A grocery shop
He also owned a tobacconist's, served as mayor in 1945–46, and lost his aldermanship when Labour took the council in 1952.
Q 03Which subject did she read at Oxford?
Chemistry
She later said she was prouder of being the first prime minister with a science degree than of being the first woman in the job.
Q 04Which women's college was she at in Oxford, one she tried as prime minister to keep single-sex?
Somerville
She arrived a year early in October 1943 after another scholarship candidate withdrew.
Q 05Which X-ray crystallographer, later a Nobel laureate, was her tutor and thesis supervisor at university?
Dorothy Hodgkin
Tutor and pupil corresponded into the 1980s, and a portrait of the scientist hung in 10 Downing Street.
Q 06Which 1944 book by Friedrich Hayek influenced her politics while she was at Oxford?
The Road to Serfdom
She became President of the Oxford University Conservative Association in 1946.
Q 07Which company rejected her in 1948 as 'headstrong, obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated'?
ICI
She was working at the time as a research chemist for BX Plastics in Colchester.
Q 08While standing for Parliament she worked as a research chemist for which food firm, reportedly on ice cream emulsifiers?
J. Lyons and Co.
Her supervisor Hans Jellinek said in 1979 that she had done 'a very good job', 'showing great determination'.
Q 09Her only scientific paper, in 1951, concerned saponifying a compound with properties as what?
An emulsifier
The paper on α-monostearin appeared in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.
Q 10The 'Vermin Club' she joined as a young activist was formed in response to a remark by which Labour politician?
Aneurin Bevan
She attended the 1948 party conference at Llandudno as a graduate delegate.
Q 11Which Labour-held Kent seat did she fight and lose in both 1950 and 1951?
Dartford
She was the youngest Conservative candidate in the country in 1950 and cut the Labour majority by 6,000.
Q 12In which year did she marry Denis Thatcher?
1951
They met at a dinner after her adoption as a candidate; she first described him as 'not a very attractive creature – very reserved but quite nice'.
Q 13In which profession did she qualify in 1953, specialising in taxation?
Barrister
Denis paid for her studies; their twins were born later the same year.
What were the names of her twins, born prematurely in 1953?
Q 21Whom did she beat on the 1975 leadership second ballot, then make her deputy?
William Whitelaw
Her support was strongest among MPs on the right, from southern England, and those who had not been to public school or Oxbridge.
Q 22Which actor, met by chance, arranged voice lessons for her with the National Theatre's coach?
Laurence Olivier
The introduction came through her media adviser Gordon Reece, a former television producer.
Q 23Writing in The Observer, Clive James compared her 1973 speaking voice to what?
A cat sliding down a blackboard
Carol and Mark
Their daughter later became a journalist and revealed her mother's dementia in 2005.
Q 15Which north London seat did she represent in the Commons from 1959 to 1992?
Finchley
She had first been rejected for the Orpington by-election candidacy in 1954.
Q 16Her maiden speech supported her own private member's bill, which required local authorities to do what?
Hold council meetings in public
She won a backbench lottery to propose legislation, and the bill became the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960.
Q 17In 1961 Harold Macmillan gave her a first frontbench post as parliamentary secretary at which ministry?
Pensions
She was the youngest woman ever to receive such a post.
Q 18In the 1970–74 Conservative government she sat in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for what?
Education and Science
Within days she withdrew Labour's circular pressing councils to go comprehensive, though 94 grammar schools were all she saved.
Q 19The nickname 'Milk Snatcher' came from her ending free school milk for children in which age group?
Seven to eleven
Cabinet papers later showed she opposed the cut but was forced into it by the Treasury.
Q 20Which sitting party leader did she beat on the first ballot of the 1975 Conservative leadership vote?
Edward Heath
He resigned after the first ballot and was never reconciled to her leadership.
She had already begun working on her presentation with the adviser Gordon Reece.
Q 24The 'Iron Lady' nickname came from a 1976 headline in which Soviet Army newspaper?
Red Star
A week later she embraced it, likening it to the Duke of Wellington's 'Iron Duke'.
Q 25By what title is Thatcher's 1976 speech that provoked the 'Iron Lady' tag known?
Britain Awake
She quipped that she stood in a chiffon evening gown as 'the Iron Lady of the Western world'.
Q 26Which Conservative slogan attacked the government's unemployment record before the 1979 election?
Labour Isn't Working
The election followed a lost confidence vote after the strikes of the Winter of Discontent.
Q 27Which Labour prime minister did she replace when she entered Downing Street?
James Callaghan
He had surprised everyone in September 1978 by not calling an election, and she branded his government 'chickens'.
Q 28In which year did she become prime minister?
1979
The Conservatives won a 44-seat majority.
Q 29On the steps of Downing Street she paraphrased a prayer attributed to which saint?
St Francis
'Where there is discord, may we bring harmony,' she began.
Q 30Which playwright wrote the 1980 speech line 'You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning'?
Ronald Millar
It was aimed at cabinet 'wets' and a press expecting a U-turn during the recession.