The U.K. Has Its First Non-White, And First Hindu P.M., The Youngest In 200 Years

The Conservative Party in the U.K. (a.k.a. the Tories) is putting in a place a Prime Minister very different from its previous two incumbents in that position at a time when their party is in an abject crisis and has lost a great deal of public support for corruption during Boris Johnson's term, and for its inept economic policies.

Former finance minister Rishi Sunak will be the United Kingdom’s next prime minister after seeing off his lone remaining rival in the fast-tracked race to become Conservative party leader on Monday. . . .

Sunak will become the first person of color and the first Hindu to lead the UK. At 42, he is also the youngest person to take the office in more than 200 years. . . .

Sunak is set to replace Liz Truss, who will become the shortest-serving prime minister in UK history. Sunak will become prime minister once he is officially appointed by King Charles III and will be the first prime minister appointed by the new King following the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September.

From CNN. 

Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, who served as Prime Minister from 1812 to 1827 is reputed to have had a part Indian mother and to have been one-sixteenth Indian, however, and was the closest to a "person of color" serving as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom prior to Sunak.

Other Recent Notable Firsts For U.K. Prime Ministers

Liz Truss who served 44 days as Prime Minister in 2022 was the third woman to serve as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. She was proceeded by Theresa May who served from 2016 to 2019, and Margaret Thatcher who served from 1979 to 1990.

Sunak was born in Great Britain like all of his predecessors, except two who were born in Dublin, Ireland when it was controlled by England in the 1700s, one who was born in Canada when it was a British colony (Bonar Law, who served from 1922 to 1923 and presided over the loss of the Irish Republic), and Boris Johnson, who was born in New York City and is the only Prime Minister to be born outside English/British territory.

Prior Non-Christian Prime Ministers Of The United Kingdom

Sunak is not the first non-Christian to be a prime minister of the U.K., however (even ignoring religious conversions after leaving office). 

Several prior Prime Ministers were non-religious and one may have been covertly Jewish even though officially he was an Anglican while serving as Prime Minister.

Boris Johnson, who was prime minister of the U.K. before Liz Truss from 2019 to 2022, has denied being a “serious, practicing Christian” although he identifies as one culturally and was raised Catholic. Boris Johnson was baptised as a Roman Catholic but became an Anglican while at school. On May 29, 2021, Boris Johnson married Carrie Symonds at Westminster Cathedral, a Roman Catholic Church, adding an additional Catholic sacrament. Boris Johnson's mother is the granddaughter of Elias Avery Lowe, who was a Russian Jewish immigrant to the US. He was the first person raised Catholic to serve as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, even though he was nominally Anglican while he served as Prime Minister. No one has openly professed to be Catholic or an Orthodox Christian or a Muslim while serving as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

James Callaghan (Prime Minister 1976–1979) was raised as a Christian but became an atheist in the 1960s. James Callaghan's paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Bernstein, was Jewish.

Clement Attlee (Prime Minister 1945–1951), was an agnostic and stated that he believed in Christian morality but not it’s “mumbo jumbo”.

Neville Chamberlain (Prime Minister 1937-1940) was raised in a Unitarian family, but, apart from funerals, was not shown to have attended religious services during his adult life and showed no interest in organized religion.

David Lloyd George (Prime Minister 1916-1922) lost his faith as a youth, but retained an appreciation of good preaching and hymn-singing.

Benjamin Disraeli was born in London to Jewish parents, but in 1817 he was baptised Christian (aged 13), as his father thought 19th century social/professional advancement required this nominal conversion to Christianity. He served as Prime Minister from February 27, 1868 to December 1, 1868 and again from February 20, 1874 to April 21, 1880.

Other Young Prime Ministers In U.K. History

The most recent Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who was younger than Sunak when he took office was William Pitt the Younger, who was 24 years old when he was took the office in 1783 who served until 1806. 

The next most recent was Fredrick North, Lord North, who was 37 years old when he took office in 1770, who last served the U.K. in that role in 1782. 

The next most recent was Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton who was 33 when he took office in 1768 who served until 1770. 

Before him was Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham who was 35 when he took office in 1765 who last served in 1782 (there was some back and forth between the men). 

Finally, there was William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire who was 36 when he took office in 1756 who last served in 1757.

Robert Walpole who began his service in 1721 at the age of 44, is considered the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and he served until 1742, although Benjamin Disraeli, was the first to use the title in an official act in 1878. 

Other Historical Observations

England and Scotland merged to form the Kingdom of Great Britain under a treaty that took effect in 1707 before the Kingdom had a prime minister responsible to parliament. Ireland was added and the term United Kingdom was adopted in 1801.

Strictly speaking, William Pitt the Younger was the first to preside over the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (subsequently named the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland when the United Kingdom recognized the Republic of Ireland's independence). 

In any case, the notion of someone chosen by the House of Commons actually serving as head of government, which is a concept that evolved and came into being during Walpole's service as prime minister, arose much more recently than a partially elected parliament's role as a check on the monarch's authority did in British history (apart from the eleven year long Commonwealth of England from 1649 to 1660, under Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, and then under his son, Richard Cromwell who took office at age 36 in 1658 and served for a little under nine months into the following year; General John Lambert presided over the Commonwealth of England as it fell until the Stuart Restoration was accomplished in 1660). This happened in the U.K. only half a century or so before the United States and France became Republics.