Forenames of UK Prime Ministers Quiz

Answer: James

James Gordon Brown was born in 1951 in the suburban town of Giffnock in East Renfrewshire in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a first in history in 1972, and completed his Ph.D. in the same subject ten years later.

Brown was first elected as the MP for Dunfermline East in 1983 and in 1997 became Chancellor of the Exchequer in Tony Blair's administration. He took over from Blair as PM in 2007, but was ousted just short of three years later when his Labour Party was defeated in the 2010 General Election.

James was also the real first name of both Harold Wilson and Ramsay MacDonald, as well as the middle name of James Balfour.

Answer: Leonard

Leonard James Callaghan was born in 1912 in Portsmouth. A former tax inspector, he joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and rose to the rank of Lieutenant during service in WWII.

Callaghan served as a Member of Parliament for a Cardiff constituency from 1945 until 1987, and he was the "Father of the House" (the longest-serving member of the House of Commons) in his final term. He is the only person in British history who has held all four great offices of state: he was Chancellor from 1964-67, Foriegn Secretary from 1967-70 and 1974-76, and Home Secretary from 1970-71, all under Harold Wilson's premiership. He then succeeded Wilson as PM in 1976. He served just over three years in office before losing the 1979 election to Margaret Thatcher.

After leaving office, he was knighted in April 1987 and became Baron Callaghan of Cardiff in November of that same year. He died just a day before his 93rd birthday in 2005 as the longest-lived British ex-PM of all time, having extended Harold Macmillan's former record by 39 days.

Answer: Frederick

Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home was born 1903 in central London. A graduate of Christ Church, Oxford and a former Major in the Territorial Army, Douglas-Home is also the only British Prime Minister who has also played first-class cricket.

Douglas-Home served as the MP for Lanark from 1931-45 and 1950-51. in July 1951, his father died and he became Lord Home and took his place in the House of Lords. He served as Foreign Secretary in Harold Macmillan's government from 1960-63. In October 1963, he was elected as leader of the Conservative Party and relinquished his peerage to return to the House of Commons as the MP for Kinross and Western Perthshire. As Prime Minister, he served just one year before losing the election in October 1964 to Harold Wilson.

During Edward Heath's premiership (1970-74), Douglas-Home as Foreign Secretary. It was not unusual in the 19th century for former Prime Ministers to serve under later PMs, but more than 40 years after Douglas-Home left office in March 1974, he remained the last person to have done so.

Douglas-Home returned to the House of Lords as Lord Home of the Hirsel at the end of 1974. He died aged 92 in October 1995.

Answer: Maurice

Maurice Harold Macmillan was born in 1894 in central London. A graduate of Balliol College, Oxford and a publisher by profession, he served as a captain in the Grenadier Guards during WWI. He was the MP for Stockton-On-Tees in County Durham from 1924-29 and 1931-45. Five months after losing his seat at the July 1945 General Election, he returned to Parliament as the MP for Bromley in Kent, a seat he then held until 1964.

Macmillan served in Winston Churchill's cabinet as Minister for Housing and local Government and Minister for Defence before becoming first Foreign Secretary (April-December 1955) and then Chancellor (1955-57) in Anthony Eden's administration. Macmillan rook over from Eden as PM in January 1957 and served for nearly seven years before being succeeded by Alec Douglas-Home in October 1963.

Macmillan joined the House of Lords in 1984 as the 1st Earl of Stockton. He died aged 92 in December 1986.

Answer: Robert

Robert Anthony Eden was born in 1897 in Windlestone Hall, a 19th-century country house near the village of Rushyford in County Durham. A graduate of Christ Church, Oxford, he was a Major in the King's Royal Rifle Corps during WWI.

Eden served as the MP for Warwick and Leamington in the West Midlands from 1923 until 1957. A Foreign Secretary under both Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain, he became Winston Churchill's Secretary of State for War in 1940. After just a few months in that role, he returned to the Foreign Office, where he stayed through the remainder of the Churchill premierships (1940-45 and 1951-55). In April 1955, Eden succeeded Churchill as PM. His tenure lasted less than two years, though, and after the Suez debacle he surrendered the top job to Harold Macmillan in January 1957.

Anthony Eden was knighted in 1954. In 1961 he was elevated to the peerage as the 1st Earl of Avon. Eden died aged 79 in January 1977.

Answer: Richard

Clement Richard Attlee was born in 1883 in the southwest London suburb of Putney. On Oxford graduate and lawyer by profession, Attlee was a Major in the British Army serving at the Gallipoli Campaign and on the Western Front during WWI.

Clement Attlee was the MP for the Limehouse constituency in the East End of London from 1922 until 1950 and then for the reconstituted Walthamstow West from 1950-55. He was Postmaster General in Ramsay MacDonald's government and then held various cabinet posts (including Deputy PM) in Churchill's wartime coalition government. Attlee became Leader of the Labour Party in 1935 and PM when his party defeated Churchill's Conservatives in the 1945 General Election. Attlee served more than six years as PM before losing the 1951 election to Churchill.

When he retired from the House of Commons in 1955, Attlee was elevated to the peerage as 1st Earl Attlee. He died aged 84 in 1967.

Answer: Arthur

Arthur Neville Chamberlain was born in 1869 in the Birmingham suburb of Edgbaston. The son of a Cabinet Minister and Mayor of Birmingham, he was educated at Rugby School and attended Mason College (now the University of Birmingham) before going into business.

Chamberlain was first elected to Parliament as the MP for Birmingham Ladywood in 1919, at the age of 49, and still remains the oldest debutant MP to subsequently become Prime Minister. He served as the Minister of Health in the administrations of Andrew Bonar Law, Stanley Baldwin and Ramsay MacDonald, and as Chancellor of the Exchequer under the latter two. He succeeded Baldwin as PM in May 1937 but was forced to resign three years later (following his disastrous attempt to appease Hitler) and was replaced by Winston Churchill.

Chamberlain died of bowel cancer just six months after leaving office, in November 1940 at the age of 71.

Answer: Henry

Herbert Henry Asquith was born in 1852 in the market town of Morley, which is on the outskirts of Leeds in West Yorkshire. A graduate of Balliol College, Oxford and a lawyer by profession, Asquith fathered numerous children, two of whom became life peers in their own right, one became a Princess, and one was a noted film director.

Asquith served as the MP for the Scottish constituency of East Fife from 1886 until 1918, and then as the MP for Paisley from 1920-24. He was Home Secretary during the premiership of William Gladstone and Chancellor under Henry Campbell-Bannerman. He succeeded the latter as Prime Minister in 1908 and held the top job for more than eight years before being succeeded (during WWI) by David Lloyd George in December 1916.

Following his retirement from the Commons, Asquith was elevated to the peerage as the 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith in 1925. He died aged 75 in 1928.

Answer: Robert

Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil was born in 1830 in the town of Hatfield in central Hertfordshire. Educated at Eton, he graduated from Christ Church, Oxford with a degree in mathematics.

Cecil became the MP for the constituency of Stamford in south-western Lincolnshire in 1853, and retained his seat unopposed until he entered the peerage as Viscount Cranborne in 1865. Three years later, on the death of his father, he became the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury. He served as the Secretary of State for India in 1866-67 under the Earl of Derby and again from 1874-78 during the premiership of Benjamin Disraeli. Between 1878 and 1880 he was Foreign Secretary under The Earl of Beaconsfield, a role he continued to fill when during all three of his stints as Prime Minister. He first gained the top job for six months 1885-86 between Gladstone administrations. His second term as PM lasted longer, more than six years from 1886-92. He then returned to office in 1895, the last PM appointed by Queen Victoria. He remained in office for seven more years, into the reign of Edward VII.

Cecil died at the age of 73 in 1903, slightly more than a year after leaving office for the third time.

Answer: Charles

Charles Grey was born in 1764 in the hamlet of Fallodon on the North Sea coast of Northumberland. Educated at Richmond and Eton and a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, his personal life is perhaps most notable for his marriage to Mary Ponsonby (1776 - 1861), which produced an amazing ten sons and six daughters, one of whom, Lady Elizabeth Grey (1798-1880) was a great-great-great-grandmothers of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Grey was elected to Parliament in 1786 at the age of just 22 representing the Northumberland constituency. He was Foreign Secretary from 1806-07 under Lord Grenville. In 1806, he also became leader of the Whig Party and thus Leader of the Opposition, a post he held until the resignation of the Duke of Wellington as PM in 1830. Although Grey served only four years as PM (1830-34), his premiership was noteworthy for the passage of the Reform Act in 1832 and the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1833.

Today, Grey is perhaps best known for the blend of tea that is named for him. He died aged 81 in 1845.