LONDON - Former British Prime Minister James Callaghan, the affable, self-educated sailor's son who rose from poverty to become Lord Callaghan of Cardiff, died Saturday on the eve of his 93rd birthday and 11 days after the death of his wife of 67 years.
Mr. Callaghan's family said he died at his home in East Sussex county, south of London.
Mr. Callaghan succeeded Prime Minister Harold Wilson in April 1976, in the dying days of Britain's post-World War II consensus politics, and governed until May 1979, when strikes, financial crises and party divisions cost him the election against Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party.
Mr. Callaghan, who entered Parliament as a Labour Party lawmaker in 1945, was the only British politician to hold, at different times, the four posts of prime minister, Treasury chief, foreign secretary and home secretary.
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