James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, PC, FRS, FSS was a British politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from October 1964 to June 1970, and again from March 1974 to April 1976. Wilson was the Leader of the Labour Party from 1963 to 1976, and was a Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1983. Wilson is the only Labour leader to have formed Labour administrations following four general elections, one of them as a minority government.
Born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, to a politically active middle class family, Wilson won a scholarship to attend Royds Hall Grammar School and went on to study modern history at Jesus College, Oxford. He was later an economic history lecturer at New College, Oxford and a research fellow at University College, Oxford. Elected to Parliament in 1945 for the seat of Ormskirk, Wilson was immediately appointed to the Attlee Government as a Parliamentary Secretary; he became Secretary for Overseas Trade in 1947, and was elevated to the Cabinet shortly thereafter as President of the Board of Trade. In 1950, he moved to represent the nearby seat of Huyton.