Luck Ln, Huddersfield HD3 4HA, UK
In 1927, Wilson entered Royds Hall Grammar School with scholarship, studying there until 1932.
Cross Ln, Bebington, Wirral CH63 3AQ, UK
In 1932, Wilson entered Wirral Grammar School, studying there till 1934.
Turl St, Oxford OX1 3DW, UK
Wilson started studying Modern History at Jesus College, Oxford, from 1934. However, at the end of the year, he switched to Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), graduating with a first-class honours degree in three years later.
Harold Wilson is a recipient of the Order of the Garter.
Harold Wilson is a recipient of the Order of the British Empire.
Luck Ln, Huddersfield HD3 4HA, UK
In 1927, Wilson entered Royds Hall Grammar School with scholarship, studying there until 1932.
Cross Ln, Bebington, Wirral CH63 3AQ, UK
In 1932, Wilson entered Wirral Grammar School, studying there till 1934.
Turl St, Oxford OX1 3DW, UK
Wilson started studying Modern History at Jesus College, Oxford, from 1934. However, at the end of the year, he switched to Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), graduating with a first-class honours degree in three years later.
Harold Wilson is a recipient of the Order of the Garter.
Harold Wilson is a recipient of the Order of the British Empire.
Wife, Mary (Baldwin) Wilson
Son, Robin Wilson
Son, Giles Wilson
Golda Meir
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316944904/?tag=2022091-20
1971
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006CVM6I/?tag=2022091-20
1976
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671400290/?tag=2022091-20
1978
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/071811860X/?tag=2022091-20
1979
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0718120027/?tag=2022091-20
1981
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0718127757/?tag=2022091-20
1986
James Harold Wilson was born on March 11, 1916, in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, United Kingdom. He came from a political family: his father James Herbert Wilson was a works chemist who had been active in the Liberal Party and then joined the Labour Party. His mother Ethel (née Seddon) was a schoolteacher before her marriage.
In 1920, Harold Wilson began his education at New Street Elementary School, Milnsbridge, studying there until 1927. He, then, entered Royds Hall Grammar School with scholarship, studying there until 1932. He was a good student, who topped in almost all subjects. However, he concentrated mostly on his school curriculum, reading little outside it. Neither did he show any interest in a team game, instead preferring long-distance running.
In 1932, Wilson entered Wirral Grammar School, studying there till 1934. Wilson did well there tool and, although he missed getting a scholarship, he obtained an exhibition; this, when topped up by a county grant, enabled him to study Modern History at Jesus College, Oxford, from 1934. However, at the end of the year, he switched to Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), graduating with a first-class honours degree in three years later.
In 1937, at a mere 21 years of age, Wilson became a lecturer in economics at New College, Oxford. Also in 1937, he started working with William Beveridge, who he helped Wilson to secure a Fellowship at the University College in 1938, which continued till 1945.
As the Second World War broke out, Wilson volunteered for military service. Maybe because of his work with Beveridge, he was classified as a specialist and was drafted in the civil service. In 1941, he started working as a statistician and economist for the coal industry.
In 1943, he became the Director of Economics and Statistics, Ministry of Fuel and Power, holding the position till 1944. Here, he undertook extensive research, greatly improving the available statistics, making the picture clear for the authorities. The result was published in 1945 as "New Deal for Coal".
The same year the Labour party ousted the aristocratic Sir Winston Churchill from office in a landslide victory. Wilson made his debut in parliament at the age of 29 as the representative of Ormskirk. He spent his first two years as parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of Works (1945 - 1947), and in 1947, he was appointed Secretary for Overseas Trade, in which capacity he made several trips to the USSR. Later on 29 September 1947, he became President of the Board of Trade, thus becoming United Kingdom’s youngest Cabinet Minister since 1792. In this capacity, he abolished some of the wartime rationings.
By the beginning of 1950, Wilson was becoming a familiar figure on the parliamentary scene. In 1951 Wilson's unpretentious image received a boost when the government announced that the National Health Service would bill its patients for the first time since its introduction in 1946. This change of policy caused two resignations from the government. The first came from Minister of Health Aneurin Bevan, who had designed the plan with the express intention that it offers free service. The second was from Wilson, whose gesture was seen then as support for the middle class. Voters later remembered this gesture when the time came to elect a new leader for the Labour party.
In the 1951 general election, Wilson stood for the new seat of Huyton near Liverpool and although his party lost the election he narrowly won the seat. Eventually, he became Labour’s spokesperson on finance and foreign affairs.
In 1960, Wilson unsuccessfully challenged Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell in the Labour Party Leadership election. Wilson faced off against competitor George Brown for the top slot. Despite Brown's popularity with the labour unions, Wilson defeated him to take Gaitskell's place as leader of the opposition until his election victory in October 1964.
From his first months in office, Prime Minister Wilson handled his responsibilities with flair. He worked well with the cloistered Queen Elizabeth II, introducing her to the middle-class viewpoint for the first time. He also concentrated on passing number of social reforms, outlawing capital punishment in 1966. In 1967, he passed the Sexual Offence Act, decriminalizing homosexual act in private and Abortion Act, legalizing abortion. The Theatres Act 1968 abolished censorship of the stage.
During that time, Wilson also froze rents, announced government subsidies on certain food items, and imposed price controls. Willing to listen, he negotiated with all parties to end the vicious circles of miners’ strikes. To enable the working class to pursue higher education, he established Open University in 1969.
Nevertheless, by the end of the decade, Wilson's popularity was fading because of growing tensions in Northern Ireland, a breakaway white minority government in colonial Rhodesia, and abrasiveness between the domestic government and the powerful British trade unions. Rising unemployment spurred Wilson to gamble by calling for general elections in 1970, but the Labour party was resoundingly defeated by Edward Heath.
His defeat proved temporary, for in February 1974 a miners' strike in response to a wage freeze brought Wilson and the Labour party back into power. He seemed to be on solid political ground, but in 1976 he suddenly chose to resign and largely disappeared from public view despite his elevation to a baron's status in 1983.
After resigning from office, Wilson, however, continued to retain his seat in the House of Commons, representing Huyton until 1983. Thereafter, as Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, he entered the House of Lords, continuing to attend its sessions until a year prior to his death.
His decision led to a rash of speculation in the media. One rumour had him fighting cancer, while a second stated that the British counter-intelligence agency was trying to destabilize his government. The truth was concealed until after Wilson's death in 1995. According to the influential British medical journal The Lancet, Harold Wilson was one of 500, 000 British patients suffering from Alzheimer's Disease.
Harold Wilson was one of the most skilful political tacticians in 20th-century British history. He was not only credited with the significant role in developing of British membership of the European Community, establishment of the Open University which allowed working people to study for degrees by correspondence but was also praised by supporters for refusing to join America in sending troops to Vietnam.
A consummate politician, Wilson also won four of five general elections, more than any other postwar British leader of any party. His own version of politics in his time may be found in his The Labour Government, 1964–1970 (1971), The Governance of Britain (1976), and Final Term: The Labour Government 1974–76 (1979).
A portrait of Harold Wilson, painted by the Scottish portrait artist Cowan Dobson, hangs today at University College, Oxford. Two statues of Harold Wilson stand in prominent places. In September 2006, Tony Blair unveiled a second bronze statue of Wilson in the latter's former constituency of Huyton, near Liverpool.
Also in 2006, a street on a new housing development in Tividale, West Midlands, was named Wilson Drive in honour of Wilson. Along with neighbouring new development Callaghan Drive (named after James Callaghan), it formed part of a large housing estate developed since the 1960s where all streets were named after former prime ministers or senior parliamentary figures.
Wilson was brought up as a Baptist, at university joined the evangelical Oxford Group, and in 1963 declared: "I have religious beliefs and they very much affected my political views." According to Douglas-Home's biographer, his "Christianity was of the heart ... a matter of personal."
Pragmatic and willing to listen to all viewpoints, Wilson ended a vicious round of miners' strikes, froze rents, announced government subsidies on certain food staples, and imposed price controls, all to convey to the electorate that each governmental decision was motivated by an idea of the national interest rather than by an idea of socialism.
Wilson's government made a variety of changes to the tax system. An idiosyncratic Selective Employment Tax (SET) was introduced that was designed to tax employment in the service sectors while subsidising employment in manufacturing.
Wilson considered the education of a primarily importance, thus he promoted the concept of an Open University, to give adults who had missed out on tertiary education a second chance through part-time study and distance learning.
Quotations:
"A week is a long time in politics."
"He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery."
"One man's wage increase is another man's price increase."
"I'm an optimist, but an optimist who carries a raincoat."
"Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death."
"The main essentials of a successful prime minister are sleep and a sense of history."
Harold Wilson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1969 under Statute 12 of the Society's regulations, which covers people who have rendered conspicuous service to the cause of science or are such that their election would be of signal benefit to the Society.
Wilson regarded himself as a "man of the people" and did much to promote this image, being proud of his middle-class roots and contrasting himself with the stereotypical aristocratic conservatives who had preceded him. Features of this portrayal included his working man's Gannex raincoat, his pipe, his love of simple cooking and his fondness for popular British relish HP Sauce. He had the Yorkshire accent, that he did not bother to smooth, he invariably wore the raincoat over a rumpled suit and preferred beer rather than champagne.
There was another curious aspect to Harold Wilson - a strange modesty. Sometimes one had the impression that he never quite believed that he had arrived at the top of the greasy pole.
Thus, despite his successes and one-time popularity, Harold Wilson's reputation took a long time to recover from the low ebb reached immediately following his second premiership. Some accuse him of undue deviousness, some claim he did not do enough to modernise the Labour Party's policy positions on issues such as the respective roles of the state and the market or the reform of industrial relations.
Physical Characteristics: Harold Wilson was one of 500, 000 British patients suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. He also suffered from colon cancer.
Quotes from others about the person
"Academically his results put him among prime ministers in the category of Peel, Gladstone, Asquith, and no one else. But. .. he lacked originality. What he was superb at was the quick assimilation of knowledge, combined with an ability to keep it ordered in his mind and to present it lucidly in a form welcome to his examiners." - Roy Jenkins
"Harold Wilson was, above all else, a great political survivor, a fine politician if, perhaps, never truly a statesman." - Edward Heath
"If he ever went to school without any boots it was because he was too big for them." - Ivor Bulmer-Thomas
"Harold Wilson is going around the country stirring up apathy." - William Whitelaw
On New Year's Day 1940, in the chapel of Mansfield College, Oxford, Harold Wilson married Mary Baldwin who remained his wife until his death and soon became a published poet. The couple had two sons, Robin and Giles (named after Giles Alington); Robin became a Professor of Mathematics, and Giles became a teacher.
(1882-1971)
(1882-1957)
