
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1964 to 1970 and 1974 to 1976, winning four general elections. He is the most recent British Prime Minister to have served non-consecutive terms.
First entering Parliament in 1945, Wilson was immediately appointed the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works and rose quickly through the ministerial ranks, becoming the Secretary for Overseas Trade in 1947 and being appointed to the Cabinet just months later as the President of the Board of Trade. In the Labour Shadow Cabinet he served first as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1955 to 1961 and then as the Shadow Foreign Secretary from 1961 to 1963, when he was elected Leader of the Labour Party. Wilson won the 1964 election, becoming Prime Minister and going on to win an increased majority in 1966. Wilson's first period as Prime Minister coincided with a period of low unemployment and relative economic prosperity, though also of significant problems with Britain's external balance of payments. After losing the 1970 general election, he spent four years as Leader of the Opposition before beginning his second period as Prime Minister in 1974, when a period of economic crisis was beginning to hit most Western countries.