FACTBOX: Gordon Brown, Britain's prime minister

(Reuters) - Britain's new Prime Minister Gordon Brown unveiled his new government on Thursday, the day after Tony Blair resigned.

Here are some facts about Gordon Brown.

* Brown, 56, whose father was a minister in the Church of Scotland and strongly shaped his views, had a sporting accident when he was a teenager and lost an eye. A prodigious intellect, he went to university at 16.

* After university, Brown worked briefly as a lecturer and a television journalist before entering parliament in 1983, the same year as Blair. The two of them shared an office.

* Westminster folklore has it that Brown and Blair agreed over dinner at a London restaurant in 1994 that Blair would have a clear run at the party leadership on the understanding that Brown would take over half way through a second term in government.

* Brown is the longest-serving chancellor of the exchequer (finance minister) in 200 years. His first act as minister was to hand independence to the Bank of England, putting it in charge of interest rates, a move lauded by financial markets.

* There have been clashes with Blair over public service reforms and over Blair's ambition to take Britain into the euro, which Brown effectively thwarted by setting out five economic criteria that Britain must meet before joining.

* Brown's first child with his wife Sarah died 10 days after her premature birth in 2001. The couple have since had two children, the second of whom has been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.