Records of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom transitions between reigns, eight Prime Ministers each served under two sovereigns: George III had 14 Prime Ministers serving during his 59-year reign (reigned 1760–1820), beginning with the Duke of Newcastle. The last incumbent, Lord Liverpool, was the only one appointed by his son (the Prince Regent) during the father's final incapacity to rule. In downward numerical order, numbers of Prime Ministers in office during other reigns are: Only six Prime Ministers came to serve office under sovereigns in whose own reigns they were born. The present Prime Minister, Theresa May, is the third Prime Minister to have been born in
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Lord and not the Prime Minister. Despite the reluctance to legally recognise the Premiership, ambivalence toward it waned in the 1780s. During the first 20 years of his reign, George III (1760–1820) tried to be his own "prime minister" by controlling policy from outside the Cabinet, appointing and dismissing ministers, meeting privately with individual ministers, and giving them instructions. These practices caused confusion and dissension in Cabinet meetings; King George's experiment in personal rule was generally a failure. After the failure of Lord North's ministry (1770–1782) in March 1782 due to Britain's defeat in the American Revolutionary War and the