This book combines an introductory essay on the emergence and changing role of the British Prime Minister with short biographies (average 2500 words) of the fifty-one who have played that role from Sir Robert Walpole to Tony Blair.Though Walpole never held the title of 'prime minister', his long tenure as principal minister of the Crown and as the dominant figure in the House of Commons effectively established him as Britain's first prime minister. The circumstances of the Hanoverian succession left him and his successors more answerable to a majority in Parliament than to the King. Though George III sought a more active role in government, leadership of Parliament became the determining factor of who was prime minister.