Shortest serving Prime Ministers

This information should be of interest to Gordon Brown.

Gordon Brown has currently been Prime Minister for 2 weeks short of 11 months.

This is a list of all the UK Prime Ministers who have served for under a year, I have not shown those whose first term as Prime Minister was less than a year but did serve subsequent terms as I find it impossible to believe that Gordon Brown would ever be chosen to lead the Labour party ever again once he has left office, nor have I included those Prime Ministers who served periods shorter than a year in a subsequent term in office.


Shorter terms have been served by:

George Canning who served just short of 4 months in 1827, he died shortly after taking office

The Viscount Goderich who served just short of 5 months from 1827, he resigned from office because he lacked support amongst colleagues

Andrew Bonar Law who served just just short of 7 months before retiring due to ill-health in 1923, he died six months after leaving office

The Duke of Devonshire who served for 7 and a half months from 1756

The Earl of Shelburne who served for just short of 9 months from 1782

The Earl of Bute who served for just over 10 months from 1762


So Gordon Brown is not the shortest serving UK Prime Minister ever, nor even the shortest serving 20th century UK Prime Minister. If he resigned before the 27th June this year then maybe he could spin this as follows: "I am the longest serving Prime Minister who has served less than a year as Prime Minister."





A history of UK Prime Ministers can be found here.

A timeline of UK Prime Ministers can be found here, I like the blank space at the top of the timeline that denotes Gordon Brown's tenure as Prime Minister - seems a fair assessment.