Trivia

He was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1964 to 1970, and again from 1974 to 1976. He was the third Labour leader to become prime minister (after Ramsay MacDonald and Clement Attlee). He is one of only three Labour leaders (the others being Clement Attlee and Tony Blair) to win a general election since the Second World War (the other two post-war Labour prime ministers, James Callaghan and Gordon Brown, only lost general elections).

He became a Member of Parliament in 1945, elected as part of Clement Attlee's landslide victory as Labour leader.

He became a Labour peer in the House of Lords in 1983.

He studied at Jesus College, Oxford, where he graduated with a first-class honours degree in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics and became a lecturer in Economics in 1937.

He is buried on the Scilly Isles, off the south west coast of England. He spent many holidays there whilst Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

His pipe was more of a prop, since away from the camera he usually smoked cigars.

He was portrayed by Patrick Brennan in the play "The Reporter", which opened at the National Theatre in London, in February 2007. It was written by Nicholas Wright , directed by Richard Eyre and focused on the life (and death) of the BBC correspondent James Mossman who interviewed him in the mid-1960s.

He is mentioned in the lyrics of George Harrison's 1966 song for The Beatles, "Taxman", along with his Prime Ministerial successor Edward Heath ("Ahh, Mister Wilson... Ahh, Mister Heath"); also in "The Intro and the Outro" by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band ("In the groove with Harold Wilson, violin").

He considered the establishment of the Open University to be his greatest achievement. His eldest son, Robin Wilson went on to become a Professor of Mathematics there.

He is pictured on one of a set of eight British commemorative postage stamps honoring Prime Ministers, issued 14 October 2014. Other prime ministers featured in the set were William Pitt the Younger, Charles Grey, Robert Peel, William Gladstone, Clement Attlee, Winston Churchill, and Margaret Thatcher. Price of the Churchill, Attlee, Wilson, and Thatcher stamps on day of issue was 97p each.

He was the father of mathematician Robin Wilson.

His government closed almost twice as many coal mines as Margaret Thatcher. 290 coal mines closed under Wilson, compared to 160 under Thatcher. However, Thatcher closed bigger mines, putting far more miners out of work and finishing the industry altogether. Coal mining in the UK would have ended anyway due to the Climate Change Act.

Although he publicly resisted sending soldiers to fight in the Vietnam War, a small unattached party of British Special Forces operators served with the joint Australian-American Mekong Delta river reinforce. SAS personnel were dispatched to serve alongside the 82nd and 101st Airborne and the Australian and New Zealand SASs, and Royal Marine Commandos and SBS boatmen served with the US Navy Marines.

He sent the British army to Northern Ireland in August 1969.

2,000 British soldiers were allowed to volunteer for service in Vietnam during his first premiership.

His widow Mary outlived him by 23 years, dying at the age of 102 in 2018.

He was a major supporter of Israel.

He was against nationalization, with the exception of British Steel in July 1967. Steel was reprivatized in 1988.

During his first premiership the British military involvement in the Vietnam War continued after the conflict escalated in 1965. The British involvement in the Vietnam War consisted of supplying weapons, equipment and advisers to the United States. However, it also included combat missions flown by Royal Air Force aircraft from bases in Thailand against targets located in Laos and North Vietnam.

On 30 June 1966 Wilson publicly refused to give British support to U.S. bombing raids close to Hanoi and Haiphong, breaking publicly for the first time with the United States on Vietnam policy. Wilson expressed Britain's ''regret'' over the U.S. decision in a short statement issued by 10 Downing Street and in a personal report to Parliament.

He had major surgery for bowel cancer in 1981, which left him very frail.

His government was widely condemned for its role in the Biafran War.

Is thus far, the last non-consecutive Prime Minister of the U.K.

Stood down as Prime Minister in 1976, just two years into his second term. Though he explained to confidants that he was doing so because he only intended to serve as Prime Minister for only 8 or 9 years, evidence has surfaced that the real reason for his resignation was that he knew he was beginning to suffer the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, which ultimately claimed his life in 1995.

Although offered a life peerage in the House of Lords upon standing down as Prime Minister in 1976, he declined because he wanted to remain as a backbencher in the House of Commons as Member of Parliament for Huyton. He did however accept a Knighthood from the Order of the Garter. He was re-elected in said constituency in 1979, though he stood down in the 1983 general election. He subsequently accepted a life peerage, styling himself as Baron Wilson of Rievaulx.