James Callaghan - 1912 To 1944: Early Life and Career

1912 To 1944: Early Life and Career

James Callaghan was born at 38 Funtington Road, Copnor, Portsmouth, England on 27 March 1912. He was named after his father, also James Callaghan (1887–1921), who was of Irish descent and was a Royal Navy Chief Petty Officer. His mother was Charlotte Callaghan née Cundy (1879–1961). He had an older sister, Dorothy Gertrude Callaghan (born 1904). He attended Portsmouth Northern Secondary School (now Mayfield School). He gained the Senior Oxford Certificate in 1929, but could not afford entrance to university and instead sat the civil service Entrance Exam.

At the age of 17, Callaghan left to work as a clerk for the Inland Revenue. While working as a tax inspector, Callaghan was instrumental in establishing the Association of Officers of Taxes as a trade union for those in his profession and became a member of its national executive. While at the Inland Revenue offices in Kent, in 1931, he joined the Maidstone branch of the Labour Party. In 1934, he was transferred to Inland Revenue offices in London. Following a merger of unions in 1936, Callaghan was appointed a full-time union official and to the post of Assistant Secretary of the Inland Revenue Staff Federation and resigned from his Civil Service duties.

His union position at the Inland Revenue Federation 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. Laski encouraged him to stand for Parliament, although later on, he requested Callaghan several times to study and lecture at the LSE. Callaghan joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve as an Ordinary Seaman in World War II from 1942 where he served in the East Indies Fleet and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in April 1944. While training for his promotion, his medical examination revealed that he was suffering from tuberculosis and was admitted to the Royal Naval Hospital Haslar in Gosport near Portsmouth. After he recovered, he was discharged and assigned to duties with the Admiralty in Whitehall. He was assigned to the Japanese section and wrote a service manual for the Royal Navy The Enemy Japan.

Whilst on leave, Callaghan was selected as a Parliamentary candidate for Cardiff South. He narrowly won the local party ballot with twelve votes against the next highest candidate George Thomas with eleven. He was encouraged to put his name forward for the Cardiff South seat by his friend Dai Kneath, a member of the IRSF National executive from Swansea, who was in turn an associate and friend of the local Labour Party secretary Bill Headon. During 1945 he was assigned to the Indian Fleet and served on HMS Queen Elizabeth in the Indian Ocean. After VE Day, along with other prospective candidates he returned to the United Kingdom to stand in the general election.