About James Callaghan
Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff ( KAL-ə-han; 27 March 1912 – 26 March 2005) was a British statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980. Callaghan is the only person to have held all four Great Offices of State, having also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1964 to 1967, Home Secretary from 1967 to 1970 and Foreign Secretary from 1974 to 1976. He was a member of Parliament (MP) from 1945 to 1987. Born into a working-class family in Portsmouth, Callaghan left school early and began his career as a tax inspector, before becoming a trade union official in the 1930s. He served as a lieutenant in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. He was elected to Parliament at the 1945 election, and was at that time regarded as being on the left wing of the Labour Party. He was appointed to the Attlee government as a parliamentary secretary in 1947, and began to move increasingly towards the right wing of the Labour Party, while maintaining his reputation as a "Keeper of the Cloth Cap" – that is, seen as maintaining close ties between Labour and the trade unions. Following Labour's defeat at the 1951 election, Callaghan increasingly became regarded as a leader of the right wing of the Labour Party, and stood for the positions of deputy leader in 1960 and for leader in 1963, but was defeated by George Brown for the former and Harold Wilson for the latter. Following Labour's victory at the 1964 election, Wilson appointed Callaghan as Chancellor of the Exchequer; his tenure coincided with a turbulent period for the British economy, during which Callaghan had to tackle both a chronic balance of payments deficit and various speculative attacks on the pound sterling, with its exchange rate to other currencies being fixed by the Bretton Woods system. On 18 November 1967, having initially denied that it would do so, the Government devalued the pound sterling. In the wake of the decision, Wilson moved Callaghan to the role of Home Secretary. During this time, Callaghan was responsible for overseeing the operations of the British Army to support the police in Northern Ireland, following a request from the Northern Ireland government. Callaghan remained in the Shadow Cabinet during Labour's period in Opposition from 1970 to 1974; upon Labour's victory at the 1974 election, Wilson appointed Callaghan as Foreign Secretary. Callaghan was responsible for renegotiating the terms of Britain's membership of the European Communities (EC), and strongly supported the successful "Yes" vote campaign in the 1975 referendum, which confirmed the UK's membership of the EC. When Wilson suddenly announced his retirement in March 1976, Callaghan defeated five other candidates to be elected Leader of the Labour Party; he was appointed Prime Minister on 5 April 1976. Labour had won a narrow majority in the House of Commons at the October 1974 election but, through by-election defeats, had lost this by the time Callaghan became prime minister; and several by-election defeats and defections in his early months of power forced him to strike a confidence and supply agreement with the Liberal Party. This had ended by the time of significant industrial disputes and widespread strikes in the 1978–79 "Winter of Discontent"–which, followed by the defeat of the referendum on devolution for Scotland, led to minor parties joining with the Conservative Party to pass a motion of no-confidence in Callaghan on 28 March 1979. Although remaining personally popular in opinion polls, he led Labour to defeat at the 1979 election and was replaced by Conservative Margaret Thatcher. The 1979 defeat marked the beginning of 18 years in opposition for the Labour Party, the longest in its history. Callaghan carried on as Labour leader and Leader of the Opposition until November 1980, during which time he attempted to reform the process by which Labour elected its leader. After leaving the leadership he returned to the backbenches, and between 1983 and 1987 was Father of the House of Commons. On retiring from the Commons in 1987, he was elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Callaghan of Cardiff. He died in 2005 at the age of 92, and remains to date the UK's longest-lived former prime minister. He is the most recent prime minister to have served in the British Armed Forces and the only prime minister to have served in the Royal Navy. James Callaghan senior served in the First World War on board the battleship HMS Agincourt. In his early years, Callaghan was known by his first name Leonard. While on leave from the Navy, Callaghan was selected as a Parliamentary candidate for Cardiff South: he narrowly won the local party ballot with twelve votes, against the next highest candidate George Thomas, who received eleven.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.