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.

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.

While this initially proved stable, in the wake of significant industrial disputes and widespread strikes in the 1978–79 "Winter of Discontent", and the defeat of the referendum on devolution for Scotland, led to minor parties joining the Conservatives to pass a motion of no-confidence in Callaghan on 28 March 1979.

Their financial situation was improved in 1924 when the first Labour government was elected, and introduced changes allowing Mrs Callaghan to be granted a widow's pension of ten shillings a week, on the basis that her husband's death was partly due to his war service.

[13] During his time working in the Inland Revenue in the early 1930s, Callaghan met his future wife Audrey Moulton, and they were married in July 1938 at Maidstone.

[14] His union position at the IRSF brought Callaghan into contact with Harold Laski, the Chairman of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee and an academic at the London School of Economics.

Following the outbreak of World War II, in 1940, Callaghan applied to join the Royal Navy, but was initially turned down on the basis that a trade union official was deemed to be a reserved occupation.

[23] In October 1964, Conservative Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home (who had only been in power for twelve months since the resignation of Harold Macmillan) was forced to call a general election, the parliament being about to expire.

Callaghan's time as chancellor was characterised by an ultimately doomed effort to stave off devaluation of the pound: The previous chancellor, Reginald Maudling, had initiated fiscally expansionary measures which had helped create a pre-election economic boom; by greatly increasing domestic demand this had caused imports to grow much faster than exports, thus when Labour entered government they faced a balance of payments deficit of £800,000,000 (equivalent to £20,477,320,000 in 2023),[24] and sterling came under immediate speculative attack.

Handling the situation was made more difficult by the attitude of Lord Cromer, the Governor of the Bank of England, who argued against the fiscal policies of the new Labour government.

Callaghan now privately confided in Wilson that he doubted that the pound could be saved, this was reinforced after a meeting with Alec Cairncross, head of the Government Economic Service, who told him in no uncertain terms that the value of Sterling could not be maintained, and in his view it should be devalued as soon as possible.

However, in the run up to the public announcement, Callaghan found himself in a tricky situation when answering questions in the House of Commons: One backbencher Robert Sheldon tabled a motion concerning a rumour that Britain would be receiving a loan from banks.

As Denis Healey in his autobiography notes:Nowadays exchange rates can swing to and fro continually by amount greater than that, without attracting much attention outside the City columns of the newspapers.

[35] Callaghan was responsible for the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968, a controversial piece of legislation prompted by Conservative assertions that an influx of Kenyan Asians would soon inundate the country.

[36] Also significant was the passing of the Race Relations Act in the same year, making it illegal to refuse employment, housing or education on the basis of ethnic background.

Although the troops were initially welcomed by Northern Ireland's Catholics, by early 1970 this had soured, and the Provisional IRA emerged, and embarked on what became a decades long violent campaign during what became known as The Troubles.

In 1973 after an approach from the Conservative Chancellor Anthony Barber he agreed to have his name go forward for the job of Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), however this was vetoed by the French government.

The tripartite talks got underway, and in August an agreement was reached to make the ceasefire permanent, with a buffer zone patrolled by the UN between the Greek and Turkish controlled parts of the island.

After an appeal for clemency by both the Queen and the prime minister, Amin agreed to release Hills on the condition that Callaghan appeared in person to take him back to the UK.

Within months of entering office, his government was faced with a financial crisis, which caused the Chancellor Denis Healey to ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a large loan of $3900 million in order to maintain the value of sterling.

[47] Callaghan was widely judged to have handled the IMF crisis skilfully, avoiding any resignations from the Cabinet, and negotiating much lower spending cuts than had been originally demanded.

[47] During his first year in office, Callaghan started what has since become known as 'The Great Debate', when he spoke at Ruskin College, Oxford, about the 'legitimate concerns' of the public about the quality of education in the nation's maintained schools.

[53] His decision not to call an election was seen by many as a sign of his dominance of the political scene and he ridiculed his opponents by singing old-time music hall star Vesta Victoria's song "Waiting at the Church" at that month's Trades Union Congress meeting.

Returning to the United Kingdom from the Guadeloupe Conference in January 1979, Callaghan was asked, "What is your general approach, in view of the mounting chaos in the country at the moment?"

[74] Tony Benn recorded in his diary entry of 3 April 1997 that during the 1997 general election campaign, Callaghan was telephoned by a volunteer at Labour headquarters asking him if he would be willing to become more active in the party.

[77] One of his final public appearances came on 29 April 2002, when shortly after his 90th birthday, he sat alongside the then-Prime Minister Tony Blair and three other surviving former prime ministers at the time – Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher and John Major at Buckingham Palace for a dinner which formed part of the celebrations for the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II, alongside his daughter Margaret, Baroness Jay, who had served as leader of the House of Lords from 1998 until 2001.

He married Audrey Elizabeth Moulton, whom he had met when they both worked as Sunday School teachers at the local Baptist church,[79] in July 1938 and had three children – one son and two daughters.

[86] Lord Callaghan was cremated, and his ashes were scattered in a flowerbed around the base of the Peter Pan statue near the entrance of London's Great Ormond Street Hospital, where his wife had formerly been chair of the board of governors.

Bernard Donoughue, a senior official in his government, depicts Callaghan as a strong and efficient administrator who stood heads above [sic] his predecessor Harold Wilson.

[93] The standard scholarly biography by Kenneth O. Morgan is generally favourable – at least for the middle of his premiership – while admitting failures at the beginning, at the end, and in his leadership role following Margaret Thatcher's victory.