Where prime ministers grew up and lived

Alcide De Gasperi1881–1954

📍 Via Alcide De Gasperi 1, 38050 Pieve Tesino (TN), Italy

I was born Alcide Amedeo Francesco De Gasperi on the 3rd of April 1881 in Pieve Tesino, a small mountain village in the Trentino — then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now northern…

Anwar Sadat1918–1981

📍 Mit Abu al-Kum, Monufia, Egypt

I was born Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat on the 25th of December 1918 in Mit Abu al-Kum, a village in the Nile Delta. I was imprisoned twice by the British during the Second World War for…

Benazir Bhutto1953–1969

📍 70 Clifton, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan

I grew up at 70 Clifton, our family home in Karachi, a large white house set in gardens behind a high wall, near the sea breezes of the Clifton shore. I was born in June 1953, the eldest of…

Benjamin Disraeli1848–1881

📍 Hughenden Manor, High Wycombe HP14 4LA, UK

I bought Hughenden in 1848, with money lent by friends, because a man who would lead the party of the English countryside needed acres of his own. I had spent part of my youth at Bradenham…

Boris Johnson1970–1977

📍 Nethercote, Winsford, Exmoor, Somerset, UK

Boris Johnson was born in New York in 1964, and his childhood was famously restless: the family moved between London, Brussels, Washington and Oxford as his father Stanley's career took him…

Charles de Gaulle1958–1970

📍 1 Rue du Général de Gaulle, 52330 Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, France

I was born Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle on the 22nd of November 1890 in Lille, but I built my retirement home — La Boisserie — at Colombey-les-Deux-Églises in the Haute-Marne, and…

Clement Attlee1883–1901

📍 Putney, London SW15, UK

I was born in January 1883 at our family home in Putney, then a leafy, prosperous suburb on the Thames, the seventh of eight children of Henry Attlee, a City solicitor, and his wife Ellen…

David Ben-Gurion1886–1973

📍 Plonsk, Masovian, Poland

I was born David Grün on the 16th of October 1886 in Płońsk, a small town in the Russian-controlled Pale of Settlement in what is now Poland. I went to Palestine at the age of twenty…

David Lange1977–2005

📍 Māngere, Auckland 2022, New Zealand

I made my home and my political base in Māngere, the South Auckland electorate I represented for nearly three decades — a place of Pacific families, state houses and working people, the…

David Lloyd George1864–1880

📍 Highgate, Llanystumdwy, Criccieth LL52 0SH, UK

I was born in Manchester to Welsh parents, but when I was a year old my father, a schoolmaster, died, and my mother brought us home to her brother in Llanystumdwy, a small village on the…

Ferdinand Marcos1917–1986

📍 Sarrat, Ilocos Norte, Philippines

I was born Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos on the 11th of September 1917 in Sarrat, Ilocos Norte, in the northern Philippines, the son of a lawyer and politician. I was a lawyer, a war…

Fidel Castro1959–2016

📍 Punto Cero compound, Calle 232, Jaimanitas, Playa, Havana, Cuba

I was born Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz on the 13th of August 1926 in Birán, Holguín province, Cuba, the son of a prosperous sugar plantation owner. I studied law at the University of Havana…

Gamal Abdel Nasser1918

📍 18 Qanawat Street, Bacchus district, Alexandria, Egypt

I was born Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein on the 15th of January 1918 in Beni Mor, a village in the Asyut province of Upper Egypt, the son of a postal worker. I grew up in Alexandria and Cairo…

Golda Meir1906–1912

📍 615 Walnut Street, Milwaukee, WI 53212, USA

I came to Milwaukee from Kyiv in 1906, eight years old, to a flat above my father's little grocery on Walnut Street, on the immigrant North Side. My mother ran the shop and would leave me…

Habib Bourguiba1903–2000

📍 Monastir, Monastir Governorate, Tunisia

I was born Habib ibn Ali Bourguiba on the 3rd of August 1903 in Monastir, a coastal city in the Sahel region of Tunisia. I led the Neo-Destour party's campaign for independence from France…

Helen Clark1950–1967

📍 Te Pahu, Waikato, New Zealand

Helen Clark grew up on her family's sheep and beef farm at Te Pahu, on the slopes of Mount Pirongia in the Waikato, the eldest of four daughters of George and Margaret Clark. Her father was…

Hồ Chí Minh1890–1969

📍 Kim Lien, Nghe An, Vietnam

I was born Nguyễn Sinh Cung on the 19th of May 1890 in Kim Liên village, Nghệ An province, in central Vietnam. I took the name Hồ Chí Minh — He Who Enlightens — and spent thirty years in…

Indira Gandhi1917–1984

📍 1 Safdarjung Road, New Delhi 110011, India

I was born Indira Priyadarshini Nehru on the 19th of November 1917 in Allahabad, the only child of Jawaharlal Nehru and Kamala Kaul. I grew up in the nationalist movement — my childhood was…

Jacinda Ardern1990–1998

📍 Morrinsville, Waikato, New Zealand

Jacinda Ardern spent her early childhood in Murupara, a struggling timber town in the eastern Bay of Plenty, where her father, Ross, was the local police officer. She has said that seeing…

Jan Smuts1870–1950

📍 Boplaas, Malmesbury, Western Cape, South Africa

I was born Jan Christiaan Smuts on the 24th of May 1870 on the farm Boplaas near Malmesbury in the Cape Colony — now the Western Cape of South Africa. I studied law at Cambridge, fought…

Jawaharlal Nehru1948–1964

📍 Teen Murti Marg, New Delhi 110011, India

When I became Prime Minister in 1947, the former British Commander-in-Chief's residence was assigned to me. I renamed it Teen Murti — for the Indian cavalry memorial at its gates — and…

Jomo Kenyatta1897–1978

📍 Gatundu, Kiambu, Kenya

I was born Kamau wa Ngengi around 1897 in Gatundu in the Kikuyu highlands of Kenya, and I became Jomo Kenyatta — Burning Spear — the father of Kenyan independence. I spent fifteen years in…

Julius Nyerere1922–1999

📍 Butiama, Mara Region, Tanzania

I was born Julius Kambarage Nyerere on the 13th of April 1922 in Butiama, a village on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria in what was then Tanganyika. My father was the chief of the small…

Justin Trudeau1971–1984

📍 24 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, ON K1M 1M4, Canada

Justin Trudeau was born on Christmas Day 1971, while his father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was Prime Minister, and he came home from hospital to 24 Sussex Drive, the prime ministerial…

Keith Holyoake1904–1983

📍 Pahiatua, Tararua, New Zealand

I was born Keith Jacka Holyoake on the 11th of February 1904 in Pahiatua, a small town in the Tararua district of the North Island, the son of a farmer. I left school at twelve to work on…

Kenneth Kaunda1924–2021

📍 Lubwa, Chinsali, Zambia

I was born David Kaunda on the 28th of April 1924 at Lubwa mission in the Chinsali district of Northern Rhodesia, the son of an African Church of Scotland missionary. The mission gave me…

Kwame Nkrumah1909–1966

📍 Nkroful, Western Region, Ghana

I was born Francis Nwia Kofi Ngonloma Nkrumah on the 21st of September 1909 in Nkroful, a small village in the Western Region of the Gold Coast — the colony that became Ghana. My mother was…

Lee Kuan Yew1923–2015

📍 Oxley Road, Singapore

I was born Lee Kuan Yew on the 16th of September 1923 in Singapore, the son of a Hakka Chinese family that had been in Singapore for four generations. I studied law at Cambridge, returned…

Margaret Thatcher1979–1990

📍 10 Downing Street, Westminster, London, United Kingdom

I moved into Number Ten in May 1979 as the first woman to hold this office in British history, and I was determined that neither I nor anyone around me would treat that fact as the point…

Michael Joseph Savage1872–1893

📍 Tatong, Victoria 3673, Australia

I was born at Tatong, near Benalla in Victoria, in 1872, the youngest of eight children of Irish Catholic immigrants, Richard Savage and Johanna Hayes. We lived on a small farm in hard…

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk1881–1938

📍 Atatürk's Birthplace, İslahhane Sokağı 17, 54621 Thessaloniki, Greece

I was born Mustafa in 1881 in Thessaloniki — then part of the Ottoman Empire, now in Greece — in a modest house in the Jewish quarter of a cosmopolitan Mediterranean port city. Thessaloniki…

Olof Palme1927–1986

📍 Östermalmsgatan 36, Östermalm, Stockholm 114 26, Sweden

I was born Sven Olof Joachim Palme on the 30th of January 1927 in Stockholm, into an upper-class Swedish family, and I became the most internationally engaged Social Democratic Prime…

Patrice Lumumba1925–1961

📍 Onalua, Kasai, Democratic Republic of Congo

I was born Patrice Émery Lumumba on the 2nd of July 1925 in Onalua, a village in the Kasai region of the Belgian Congo. I became a postal clerk, a beer salesman, a writer, and eventually…

Peter Fraser1884–1950

📍 Northland, Wellington, New Zealand

I was born Peter Fraser on the 28th of August 1884 in Fearn, a village in Ross-shire in the Scottish Highlands, and I arrived in New Zealand in 1910 as a young socialist organiser…

Pierre Trudeau1919–2000

📍 Montreal, Quebec, Canada

I was born Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau on the 18th of October 1919 in Montreal, Quebec, the son of a French-Canadian lawyer and a Scottish-Canadian mother. Montreal gave me…

Robert Menzies1894–1978

📍 Jeparit, Victoria, Australia

I was born Robert Gordon Menzies on the 20th of December 1894 in Jeparit, a small wheat-farming town in the Wimmera district of Victoria, the son of a storekeeper and local politician…

Robert Mugabe1924–2019

📍 Kutama, Zvimba, Zimbabwe

I was born Robert Gabriel Mugabe on the 21st of February 1924 in Kutama, a Jesuit mission in Zvimba district, Southern Rhodesia. I was educated by Jesuit missionaries and became a teacher…

Robert Muldoon1921–1939

📍 Western Springs, Auckland 1022, New Zealand

I grew up in modest circumstances in Auckland, around Western Springs — an only child whose father was lost to illness when I was eight, leaving my mother and my formidable grandmother to…

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman1920–1975

📍 Tungipara, Gopalganj, Bangladesh

I was born Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on the 17th of March 1920 in Tungipara, a village in the Gopalganj district of what was then Bengal. I became the founding father of Bangladesh — the leader…

Sukarno1901–1967

📍 Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia

I was born Kusno Sosrodihardjo on the 6th of June 1901 in Surabaya, East Java, and became Sukarno — the first President of independent Indonesia. I studied engineering, became a nationalist…

Thomas Sankara1949–1987

📍 Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

I was born Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara on the 21st of December 1949 in Yako, Upper Volta — the country I renamed Burkina Faso, Land of the Upright People, in 1984. I led a military coup in…

Tony Blair1997–2007

📍 10 Downing Street, Westminster, London, United Kingdom

Tony Blair lived at Downing Street from May 1997, when Labour won a landslide general election victory, until June 2007. He, his wife, Cherie, and their children lived in the larger flat…

William Gladstone1839–1898

📍 Hawarden Castle, Hawarden, Flintshire CH5 3NY, UK

Hawarden came to me through love. In July 1839 I married Catherine Glynne, whose family had owned this castle and its great park near Chester for generations, and from then on, if anywhere…

Winston Churchill1874–1892

📍 Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1PP, United Kingdom

I was born prematurely at Blenheim on the thirtieth of November 1874, in a ground-floor room during a party — which is precisely the kind of entrance my father would have approved of…

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto1928–1979

📍 Larkana, Sindh, Pakistan

I was born Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on the 5th of January 1928 in Larkana, Sindh, the son of a feudal landowner. I was educated at Berkeley and Oxford, became a lawyer and politician, served as…