Researching David Trimble

Trimble began his career teaching law at The Queen's University of Belfast in the 1970s, during which time he began to get involved with the paramilitary-linked Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party. He was elected to the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention in 1975, and joined the UUP in 1978 after the VPUP disbanded. Remaining at Queen's University, he continued his academic career until being elected as the MP for Upper Bann in 1990. In 1995 he was unexpectedly elected as the leader of the UUP. He was instrumental in the negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, and (along with John Hume) won the Nobel Peace Prize that year for his efforts. He was later elected to become the first First Minister of Northern Ireland, although his tenure was turbulent and frequently interrupted by disagreements over the timetable for Provisional Irish Republican Army decommissioning.

After being defeated at the 2005 general election, Trimble resigned the leadership of the UUP soon afterwards. In June 2006, he accepted a life peerage in the House of Lords, taking the title of Baron Trimble, of Lisnagarvey in the County of Antrim. He did not stand again for the Assembly, which finally reconvened in 2007, instead leaving the UUP to join the Conservative Party.

Born in Frederick County, Virginia, in June 1782, Trimble graduated from the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1799.He studied law. He was admitted to the bar and commenced legal practice in Mount Sterling, Kentucky.He served in the War of 1812 as brigade quartermaster of the First Brigade, Kentucky Mounted Militia, and later as a private in the Battalion of Kentucky Mounted Infantry Volunteers commanded by Major Dudley.

Trimble was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the Fifteenth through the Seventeenth Congress.He was reelected as an Adams-Clay Republican to the Eighteenth Congress and elected as an Adams candidate to the Nineteenth Congress (March 4, 1817 – March 3, 1827). He served as chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Treasury (Sixteenth Congress) and was on the Committee on Elections (Sixteenth Congress). He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the Twentieth Congress.He died at Trimble's Furnace, Greenup County, Kentucky, October 20, 1842.