Labour government, 1974–1979
In March 1976, having just turned sixty years old, Wilson resigned as Prime Minister, ending his leadership of the Labour Party after thirteen years, and a total of nearly eight years as Prime Minister. He was replaced by James Callaghan, who had held senior government positions during both of Wilson's ministries, and had served as a Shadow Cabinet member in the early-1960s.
Will Wilson
In the spring of 1961, Wilson, along with some seventy other individuals, paid the $50 filing fee to enter the special election for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Vice President of the United States Lyndon Baines Johnson, who along with John B. Connally, Jr., as U.S. Secretary of the Navy, had joined the new administration of John F. Kennedy. Wilson trailed in fourth place in the special election with 121,961 votes (11.5 percent). Ultimately, Republican John G. Tower, then a college professor from Wichita Falls and later from Dallas, won the remaining five and one-half years of Johnson's term by approximately ten thousand votes over Senator William Blakley of Dallas. who had been appointed on an interim basis by Governor Daniel, himself a former U.S. senator and Texas attorney general.