Born in Birmingham, Enoch Powell was educated at King Edward’s School, Birmingham, then Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1937 he was appointed Professor of Greek at Sydney University at the age of 25. In 1939 he returned to Britain to enlist in the army as a private. Although commissioned on the General List, he was soon transferred to the Intelligence Corps and transferred to Cairo. He was actually fluent in all the languages used by the fighting armies: French, Italian and German. In August 1943 he was posted to Delhi. He developed a passion for India and learnt to speak Urdu. By the end of the war he had risen to the rank of brigadier.
He joined the [[Conservative Party]] and started to work for the [[Conservative Research Department]]. He was elected to the British Parliament in 1950 as Conservative Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton South West, a constituency he held until 1974. He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (1955–1957), and Financial Secretary to the Treasury (1957–1958) . In 1958 he resigned over public expenditure together with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, [[Peter Thorneycroft]] and [[Nigel Birch]]. The Prime Minister, [[Harold Macmillan]] famously dismissed their action as "[[little local difficulties]]". Powell returned to Macmillan's government as Minister of Health (1960–1963)and even entered Cabinet. He declined to serve under Douglas-Home to protest against the way Macmillan handled his succession.
He often warned of the dangers of immigration and multiracialism and their affects on national identity, and was expelled from the shadow cabinet of [[Conservative Party]] leader [[Edward Heath]] in 1968 after his notoriously inflammatory 'Rivers of Blood' speech. He also opposed Britain's membership of the European Economic Community (EEC) (now the [[European Union]]), which he believed undermined British sovereignty.