Clement Attlee

Major The Right Honourable The Earl Attlee KG OM CH PC FRS
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In office 26 July 1945 – 26 October 1951
Monarch	George VI
Deputy	Herbert Morrison
Preceded by	Winston Churchill
Succeeded by	Winston Churchill
Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In office 19 February 1942 – 23 May 1945
Prime Minister	Winston Churchill
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Herbert Morrison
Leader of the Opposition
In office 26 October 1951 – 25 November 1955
Monarch	George VI Elizabeth II
Prime Minister	Winston Churchill Sir Anthony Eden
Preceded by	Winston Churchill
Succeeded by	Herbert Morrison
In office 25 October 1935 – 11 May 1940
Monarch	George V Edward VIII George VI
Prime Minister	Stanley Baldwin Neville Chamberlain
Preceded by	George Lansbury
Succeeded by	Hastings Lees-Smith
Leader of the Labour Party
In office 25 October 1935 – 25 November 1955
Deputy	Arthur Greenwood Herbert Morrison
Preceded by	George Lansbury
Succeeded by	Hugh Gaitskell
Deputy Leader of the Labour Party
In office 25 October 1932 – 25 October 1935
Leader	George Lansbury
Preceded by	John Robert Clynes
Succeeded by	Arthur Greenwood
Lord President of the Council
In office 24 September 1943 – 23 May 1945
Prime Minister	Winston Churchill
Preceded by	Sir John Anderson
Succeeded by	The Lord Woolton
Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs
In office 15 February 1942 – 24 September 1943
Prime Minister	Winston Churchill
Preceded by	The Viscount Cranborne
Succeeded by	The Viscount Cranborne
Lord Privy Seal
In office 11 May 1940 – 15 February 1942
Prime Minister	Winston Churchill
Preceded by	Sir Kingsley Wood
Succeeded by	Sir Stafford Cripps
Postmaster General
In office 13 March 1931 – 25 August 1931
Prime Minister	Ramsay MacDonald
Preceded by	Hastings Lees-Smith
Succeeded by	William Ormsby-Gore
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
In office 23 May 1930 – 13 March 1931
Prime Minister	Ramsay MacDonald
Preceded by	Sir Oswald Mosley
Succeeded by	The Lord Ponsonby
Member of Parliament for Walthamstow West
In office 23 February 1950 – 26 December 1955
Preceded by	Valentine McEntee
Succeeded by	Edward Redhead
Member of Parliament for Limehouse
In office 15 November 1922 – 23 February 1950
Preceded by	Sir William Pearce
Succeeded by	Walter Edwards
Personal details
Born	Clement Richard Attlee 3 January 1883 Putney, Surrey, United Kingdom
Died	8 October 1967 (aged 84) Westminster Hospital, London, United Kingdom
Resting place	Westminster Abbey
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour
Spouse(s)	Violet Millar (m. 1922; d. 1964)
Children	Lady Janet Shipton Lady Felicity Harwood Martin Attlee, 2nd Earl Attlee Lady Alison Davis
Alma mater	University of Oxford
Profession	Lawyer, Soldier
Civilian awards	Order of the Garter Order of Merit Order of the Companions of Honour FRS 1947[1]
Military service
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Years of service	1914–1919
Rank	Major
Battles/wars	First World War   · Gallipoli Campaign   · Mesopotamian campaign   · Western Front
Military awards	1914–15 Star British War Medal Victory Medal

Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS^[1] (3 January 1883 – 8 October 1967) was a British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. Attlee was the first person to hold the office of Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, serving under Winston Churchill in the wartime coalition government, before going on to lead the Labour Party to a landslide election victory in 1945 and a narrow victory in 1950. He became the first Labour Prime Minister ever to serve a full five-year term, as well as the first to command a Labour majority in Parliament, and remains the longest-ever serving Leader of the Labour Party.

First elected to Parliament in 1922 as the MP for Limehouse, Attlee rose quickly to become a minister in the minority government led by Ramsay MacDonald in 1924. In 1931, after Labour suffered a heavy election defeat, he was elected its Deputy Leader. Four years later, he became the Leader of the Labour Party after the resignation of George Lansbury. At first advocating pacificism and appeasement, he later reversed his position and by 1938 became a strong critic of Neville Chamberlain's attempts to appease Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. He subsequently took Labour into the Churchill war ministry in 1940. Initially serving as Lord Privy Seal, he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in 1942. Attlee and Churchill worked together very smoothly, with Attlee working backstage to handle much of the detail and organizational work in Parliament, as Churchill took center stage with his attention on diplomacy, military policy, and broader issues. With victory in Europe in May 1945, the coalition government was dissolved. Attlee led Labour to win a huge majority in the ensuing 1945 general election two months later.

The government he led built the post-war consensus, based upon the assumption that full employment would be maintained by Keynesian policies and that a greatly enlarged system of social services would be created – aspirations that had been outlined in the wartime Beveridge Report. Within this context, his government undertook the nationalisation of public utilities and major industries, as well as the creation of the National Health Service. After initial Conservative opposition to Keynesian fiscal policy, this settlement was broadly accepted by all parties for three decades. His government also presided over the decolonisation of a large part of the British Empire, granting British India, Burma, and Ceylon independence, as well as ending the British Mandates of Palestine and Jordan. From 1947 he strongly supported the United States in the Cold War against Soviet Communism. When the budgetary crisis forced Britain out of Greece in 1947 he called on Washington to counter the Soviet Union with the Truman Doctrine. He avidly supported the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe with American money, and the NATO military alliance against the Soviet bloc. He sent British troops to fight in the Malayan Emergency in 1948. He commissioned an independent nuclear deterrent for the UK. After leading Labour to a narrow victory in the 1950 general election, he sent British troops to fight in the Korean War. Attlee was narrowly defeated by Churchill in the 1951 general election; he retired as Labour leader after losing the 1955 General Election and was elevated to the House of Lords.

In public, Attlee appeared modest and unassuming; he was ineffective at public relations and lacked charisma. His strengths emerged behind the scenes, especially in committees where his depth of knowledge, quiet demeanour, objectivity and pragmatism proved decisive. He saw himself as spokesman on behalf of his entire party, and successfully kept its multiple factions in harness. His reputation among scholars in recent decades has been much higher than during his years as Prime Minister, thanks to his role in forging the welfare state and opposing Stalin in the Cold War.

Early life and education

Attlee was born in Putney, Surrey (now part of London), the seventh of eight children. His father was Henry Attlee (1841–1908), a solicitor, and his mother was Ellen Bravery Watson (1847–1920), daughter of Thomas Simons Watson, secretary for the Art Union of London.^[2] He was educated at Northaw School, a boys' preparatory school near Pluckley in Kent.

He then attended Haileybury College, and University College, Oxford, where he graduated with a Second Class Honours BA in Modern History in 1904. Attlee then trained as a lawyer, and was called to the Bar at Inner Temple in 1906.^[3]

Early career

From 1906 to 1909, Attlee worked as manager of Haileybury House, a charitable club for working-class boys in Stepney in the East End of London run by his old school. Until then, his political views had been more conservative. However, after his shock at the poverty and deprivation he saw while working with the slum children, he came to the view that private charity would never be sufficient to alleviate poverty and that only direct action and income redistribution by the state would have any serious effect. This sparked a process of political evolution that saw him develop into a full-fledged supporter of socialism.^[3] He subsequently joined the Independent Labour Party in 1908 and became active in local politics.

In 1909, he worked briefly as a secretary for Beatrice Webb, before becoming a secretary for Toynbee Hall.^[3] In 1911, he was employed by the UK Government as an "official explainer", touring the country to explain Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George's National Insurance Act. He spent the summer of that year touring Essex and Somerset on a bicycle, explaining the Act at public meetings.^[3] A year later, he became a lecturer at the London School of Economics and remained there until he applied for an army officer commission following the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914.^[3]

Military service during the First World War

During the First World War, Attlee was commissioned^[4] and served with the South Lancashire Regiment in the Gallipoli Campaign in Turkey. His decision to fight caused a rift between him and his older brother Tom, who, as a conscientious objector, spent much of the war in prison.^[3]

After a period fighting in Gallipoli, he became ill with dysentery and was sent to a hospital in Malta to recover. His hospitalisation coincided with the Battle of Sari Bair, which saw a large number of his comrades killed. Upon returning to action, he was informed that his regiment had been chosen to hold the final lines during the evacuation of Suvla. As such, he was the penultimate man to be evacuated from Suvla Bay, the last being General Frederick Stanley Maude.^[3]

The Gallipoli Campaign had been proposed by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. Attlee believed that it was a bold strategy, which could have been successful if it had been better implemented on the ground. This gave him an admiration for Churchill as a military strategist, which would make their working relationship in later years productive.^[3]

He later served in the Mesopotamian Campaign where he was badly wounded at the Battle of Hanna, being hit in the leg by shrapnel while storming an enemy trench. He was sent back to Britain to recover, and spent most of 1917 training soldiers. From 2 to 9 July 1917 he was the temporary commanding officer of the newly formed L (later 10th) Battalion, the Tank Corps at Bovington Camp, Dorset. From 9 July he assumed command of 30th Company of the same battalion however he did not deploy to France with it in December 1917.^[5]

That year, he was promoted to the rank of Major,^[6] leading him to be known as "Major Attlee" for the inter-war period. After recovering from his injuries, he was sent to France in June 1918 to serve on the Western Front for the final months of the war.^[3] After the war he returned to lecturing at the London School of Economics, where he would remain until 1923.

Marriage and children

Attlee met Violet Millar on a trip to Italy in 1921. They were engaged a few weeks after their return, and were later married at Christ Church, Hampstead on 10 January 1922.^[3] It would come to be a devoted marriage, until her death in 1964. They had four children:

• Lady Janet Helen (born 1923); she married Harold Shipton at Ellesborough Parish church in 1947.^[7]
• Lady Felicity Ann (1925–2007), married John Harwood at Little Hampden in 1955^[8]
• Martin Richard, Viscount Prestwood, later 2nd Earl Attlee (1927–91) and
• Lady Alison Elizabeth (born 1930), married Richard Davis at Great Missenden in 1952.^[9]

Early political career

Local politics

Attlee returned to local politics in the immediate post-war period, becoming mayor of the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney, one of London's poorest inner-city boroughs, in 1919. During his time as mayor, the council undertook action to tackle slum landlords who charged high rents but refused to spend money on keeping their property in habitable condition. The council served and enforced legal orders on house-owners to repair their property. It also appointed health visitors and sanitary inspectors, and reduced the infant mortality rate.^[3]

In 1920, while mayor, he wrote his first book, The Social Worker, which set out many of the principles that informed his political philosophy and that were to underpin the actions of his government in later years. The book attacked the idea that looking after the poor could be left to voluntary action. He wrote at page 30:

In a civilised community, although it may be composed of self-reliant individuals, there will be some persons who will be unable at some period of their lives to look after themselves, and the question of what is to happen to them may be solved in three ways – they may be neglected, they may be cared for by the organised community as of right, or they may be left to the goodwill of individuals in the community.^[10]

and went on to say at page 75:

A right established by law, such as that to an old age pension, is less galling than an allowance made by a rich man to a poor one, dependent on his view of the recipient's character, and terminable at his caprice.^[11]

He strongly supported the Poplar Rates Rebellion led by George Lansbury in 1921. This put him into conflict with many of the leaders of the London Labour Party, including Herbert Morrison.^[12]

Member of Parliament

At the 1922 general election, Attlee became the Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Limehouse in Stepney. At the time, he admired Ramsay MacDonald and helped MacDonald get elected as Labour Party leader at the 1922 Labour leadership election. He later regretted this decision.^[3] He served as Ramsay MacDonald's Parliamentary Private Secretary for the brief 1922 parliament. His first taste of ministerial office came in 1924, when he served as Under-Secretary of State for War in the short-lived first Labour government, led by MacDonald.^[3]

Attlee opposed the 1926 General Strike, believing that strike action should not be used as a political weapon. However, when it happened, he did not attempt to undermine it. At the time of the strike he was chairman of the Stepney Borough Electricity Committee. He negotiated a deal with the Electrical Trade Union so that they would continue to supply power to hospitals, but would end supplies to factories. One firm, Scammell and Nephew Ltd, took a civil action against Attlee and the other Labour members of the committee (although not against the Conservative members who had also supported this). The court found against Attlee and his fellow councillors and they were ordered to pay £300 damages. The decision was later reversed on appeal, but the financial problems caused by the episode almost forced Attlee out of politics.^[3]

In 1927 he was appointed a member of the multi-party Simon Commission, a Royal Commission set up to examine the possibility of granting self-rule to India. Due to the time he needed to devote to the commission, and contrary to a promise MacDonald made to Attlee to induce him to serve on the commission, he was not initially offered a ministerial post in the Second Labour Government.^[3] Attlee's unsought service on the Commission equipped him with a thorough exposure to India and many of its political leaders. He was more sympathetic to Indian nationalism than most and played a deciding role in independence in 1947.^[13]

In 1930, Labour MP Oswald Mosley left the party after its rejection of his proposals for solving the unemployment problem. Attlee was given Mosley's post of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He was Postmaster-General at the time of the 1931 crisis, during which most of the party's leaders lost their seats. During the course of the second Labour government, Attlee had become increasingly disillusioned with Ramsay MacDonald, whom he came to regard as vain and incompetent, and of whom he later wrote scathingly in his autobiography.^[3][14]

Opposition

Deputy Leader

After Ramsay MacDonald formed a National Government to combat the Great Depression in 1931, the ensuing election was a disaster for the Labour Party, which lost over 200 seats. The vast majority of the party's senior figures lost their seats, including the Leader Arthur Henderson. George Lansbury and Attlee were two of the very few surviving Labour MPs who had experience of government, and accordingly Lansbury was elected Leader with Attlee as his deputy.^[3]

Attlee would effectively serve as acting leader for nine months from December 1933, after Lansbury fractured his thigh in an accident, which raised Attlee's public profile considerably. It was during this period, however, that personal financial problems almost forced Attlee to quit politics altogether. His wife had become ill, and at that time there was no separate salary for the Leader of the Opposition. On the verge of resigning from Parliament, he was persuaded to stay by Stafford Cripps, a wealthy socialist, who agreed to pay him an additional salary until his wife recovered.^[3]

Leader of the Opposition

George Lansbury, a committed pacifist, resigned as the Leader of the Labour Party at the 1935 Party Conference after delegates voted in favour of sanctions against Italy for its aggression against Abyssinia. Lansbury had strongly opposed the policy, and felt unable to continue leading the party. With a general election looming, the Parliamentary Labour Party appointed Attlee as interim leader on 25 October 1935, on the understanding that a leadership election would be held after the general election.^[3] Attlee therefore led Labour through the 1935 election, which saw the party stage a partial recovery from its disastrous 1931 performance, gaining over one hundred seats.^[15]

Attlee stood in the subsequent leadership election, held in November 1935, where he was opposed by Herbert Morrison and Arthur Greenwood. Morrison was seen as the favourite by many, but was distrusted by many sections of the party, especially the left-wing. Arthur Greenwood's leadership bid, meanwhile, was severely hampered by his alcohol problem. Attlee was able to come across as a competent and unifying figure, particularly having already led the party through a general election. He went on to come first in both the first and second ballots, formally being elected Leader of the Labour Party on 26 November 1935.^[3]

Throughout the 1920s and most of the 1930s, the Labour Party's official policy had been to oppose rearmament, instead supporting internationalism and collective security under the League of Nations.^[16] At the 1934 Labour Party Conference, Attlee declared that "We have absolutely abandoned any idea of nationalist loyalty. We are deliberately putting a world order before our loyalty to our own country. We say we want to see put on the statute book something which will make our people citizens of the world before they are citizens of this country".^[17] During a debate on defence in Commons a year later, Attlee said "We are told (in the White Paper) that there is danger against which we have to guard ourselves. We do not think you can do it by national defence. We think you can only do it by moving forward to a new world. A world of law, the abolition of national armaments with a world force and a world economic system. I shall be told that that is quite impossible".^[18] Shortly after those comments, Adolf Hitler proclaimed that German rearmament offered no threat to world peace. Attlee responded the next day noting that Hitler's speech, although containing unfavourable references to the Soviet Union, created "A chance to call a halt in the armaments race...We do not think that our answer to Herr Hitler should be just rearmament. We are in an age of rearmaments, but we on this side cannot accept that position".^[19]

In April 1936, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Neville Chamberlain, introduced a Budget which increased the amount spent on the armed forces. Attlee made a radio broadcast in opposition to it, saying the budget "was the natural expression of the character of the present Government. There was hardly any increase allowed for the services which went to build up the life of the people, education and health. Everything was devoted to piling up the instruments of death. The Chancellor expressed great regret that he should have to spend so much on armaments, but said that it was absolutely necessary and was due only to the actions of other nations. One would think to listen to him that the Government had no responsibility for the state of world affairs...The Government has now resolved to enter upon an arms race, and the people will have to pay for their mistake in believing that it could be trusted to carry out a policy of peace. ... This is a War Budget. We can look in the future for no advance in Social Legislation. All available resources are to be devoted to armaments."^[20]

In June 1936 the Conservative MP Duff Cooper called for an Anglo-French alliance against possible German aggression and called for all parties to support one. Attlee condemned this: "We say that any suggestion of an alliance of this kind—an alliance in which one country is bound to another, right or wrong, by some overwhelming necessity—is contrary to the spirit of the League of Nations, is contrary to the Covenant, is contrary to Locarno is contrary to the obligations which this country has undertaken, and is contrary to the professed policy of this Government".^[21] At the Labour Party conference at Edinburgh in October Attlee reiterated that "There can be no question of our supporting the Government in its rearmament policy".^[22]

However, with the rising threat from Nazi Germany, and the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations, this policy eventually lost credibility. By 1937, Labour had jettisoned its pacifist position and came to support rearmament and oppose Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement.^[3]

In 1938, Attlee opposed the Munich Agreement in which Chamberlain negotiated with Hitler to give Germany the German-speaking parts of Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland:

We all feel relief that war has not come this time. Every one of us has been passing through days of anxiety; we cannot, however, feel that peace has been established, but that we have nothing but an armistice in a state of war. We have been unable to go in for care-free rejoicing. We have felt that we are in the midst of a tragedy. We have felt humiliation. This has not been a victory for reason and humanity. It has been a victory for brute force. At every stage of the proceedings there have been time limits laid down by the owner and ruler of armed force. The terms have not been terms negotiated; they have been terms laid down as ultimata. We have seen to-day a gallant, civilised and democratic people betrayed and handed over to a ruthless despotism. We have seen something more. We have seen the cause of democracy, which is, in our view, the cause of civilisation and humanity, receive a terrible defeat. ... The events of these last few days constitute one of the greatest diplomatic defeats that this country and France have ever sustained. There can be no doubt that it is a tremendous victory for Herr Hitler. Without firing a shot, by the mere display of military force, he has achieved a dominating position in Europe which Germany failed to win after four years of war. He has overturned the balance of power in Europe. He has destroyed the last fortress of democracy in Eastern Europe which stood in the way of his ambition. He has opened his way to the food, the oil and the resources which he requires in order to consolidate his military power, and he has successfully defeated and reduced to impotence the forces that might have stood against the rule of violence.^[23]

In 1937, Attlee visited Spain and visited the British Battalion of the International Brigades fighting in the Spanish Civil War.^[3] One of the companies was named the 'Major Attlee Company' in his honour.

Deputy Prime Minister

Attlee as Lord Privy Seal, visiting a munitions factory in 1941

Attlee remained as Leader of the Opposition when the Second World War broke out in September 1939. The ensuing disastrous Norwegian campaign would result in a motion of no confidence in Neville Chamberlain.^[24] Although Chamberlain survived this, the reputation of his administration was so badly and publicly damaged, that it became clear a coalition government would be necessary. Even if Attlee had personally been prepared to serve under Chamberlain in an emergency coalition government, he would never have been able to carry Labour with him. Consequently, Chamberlain tendered his resignation, and Labour and the Conservatives entered a coalition government led by Winston Churchill.^[12]

In the coalition government, three inter-connected committees effectively ran the country. Churchill chaired the first two, the War Cabinet and the Defence Committee, with Attlee deputising for him in these, and answering for the government in Parliament when Churchill was absent. Attlee himself chaired the third and final body, the Lord President's Committee, which was responsible for domestic affairs. As Churchill was most concerned with overseeing the war effort, this arrangement suited both men.^[12]

Only Attlee and Churchill would remain in the War Cabinet from the formation of the Government of National Unity in May 1940 through to the election in May 1945. Attlee was initially the Lord Privy Seal, before becoming Britain's first ever Deputy Prime Minister in 1942, as well as becoming the Dominions Secretary and the Lord President of the Council. Attlee supported Churchill in his continuation of Britain's resistance after the French capitulation in 1940, and proved a loyal ally to Churchill throughout the conflict;^[12] when the War Cabinet had voted on whether to negotiate peace terms, Attlee — along with fellow Labour minister Arthur Greenwood — voted in favour of fighting, giving Churchill the majority he needed to continue the war.^[25]

Prime Minister

Attlee meeting King George VI after Labour's 1945 election victory

1945 election

Following the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of the War in Europe in May 1945, Attlee and Churchill favoured the coalition government remaining in place until Japan had been defeated. However, Herbert Morrison made it clear that the Labour Party would not be willing to accept this, and Churchill was forced to tender his resignation as Prime Minister and call an immediate election.^[12]

The war had set in motion profound social changes within Britain, and had ultimately led to a widespread popular desire for social reform. This mood was epitomised in the Beveridge Report of 1942, by the Liberal economist William Beveridge. The Report assumed that the maintenance of full employment would be the aim of post-war governments, and that this would provide the basis for the welfare state. Immediately on its release, it sold hundreds of thousands of copies. All major parties committed themselves to fulfilling this aim, but most historians say that Attlee's Labour Party were seen by the electorate as the most likely to follow it through.

Labour campaigned on the theme of "Let Us Face the Future", positioning themselves as the party best placed to rebuild Britain after the war, while the Conservative campaign focused entirely around Churchill.^{[note 1]} With Churchill's status as a "war hero", many predicted a Conservative victory. Churchill made some costly errors during the campaign. In particular, his suggestion during one radio broadcast that a future Labour Government would require "some form of a gestapo" to implement their policies was widely regarded as being in very bad taste, and massively backfired.^[12]

Despite this, the results of the election came as a surprise to most, including Attlee himself, when they were announced on 26 July. Labour had won power by a huge landslide, winning 47.7% of the vote to the Conservatives' 36%.^[26] This gave them 393 seats in the House of Commons, a working majority of 146. This was the first time in history that the Labour Party had won a majority in Parliament.^[27] When Attlee went to see King George VI at Buckingham Palace to be appointed Prime Minister, the notoriously laconic Attlee and the famously tongue-tied King stood in silence; Attlee finally volunteered the remark, "I've won the election." The King replied "I know. I heard it on the Six O'Clock News."^[28]

As Prime Minister, Attlee appointed Hugh Dalton as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Ernest Bevin as Foreign Secretary, and Herbert Morrison as Deputy Prime Minister, with overall responsibility for nationalisation. Additionally, Stafford Cripps was made President of the Board of Trade, Aneurin Bevan became Minister of Health, and Ellen Wilkinson, the only woman to serve in Attlee's government, was appointed Minister of Education. The Attlee Government proved itself to be a radical, reforming government. From 1945 to 1948, over 200 public Acts of Parliament were passed, with eight major pieces of legislation placed on the statute book in 1946 alone.^[29]

Domestic policy

Francis (1995) argues there was consensus both in the Labour's national executive committee and at party conferences on a definition of socialism that stressed moral improvement as well as material improvement. The Attlee government was committed to rebuilding British society as an ethical commonwealth, using public ownership and controls to abolish extremes of wealth and poverty. Labour's ideology contrasted sharply with the contemporary Conservative Party's defence of individualism, inherited privileges, and income inequality.^[30]

Health

Trafford General Hospital, known as the birthplace of the NHS.

Attlee's Health Minister, Aneurin Bevan, fought hard against the general disapproval of the medical establishment, including the British Medical Association, by creating the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948. This was a publicly funded healthcare system, which offered treatment free of charge for all at the point of use. Reflecting pent-up demand that had long existed for medical services, the NHS treated some 8½ million dental patients and dispensed more than 5 million pairs of spectacles during its first year of operation.^[31]

Consultants benefited from the new system by being paid salaries that provided an acceptable standard of living without the need for them to resort to private practice.^[32] The NHS brought major improvements in the health of working-class people, with deaths from diphtheria, pneumonia, and TB significantly reduced.^[33] Although there were often disputes about its organisation and funding, British parties continued to voice their general support for the NHS in order to remain electable.^[34]

In the field of health care, funds were allocated to modernisation and extension schemes aimed at improving administrative efficiency. Improvements were made in nursing accommodation in order to recruit more nurses and reduce labour shortages which were keeping 60,000 beds out of use, and efforts were made to reduce the imbalance "between an excess of fever and tuberculosis (TB) beds and a shortage of maternity beds."^[35]

BCG vaccinations were introduced for the protection of medical students, midwives, nurses, and contacts of patients with TB,^[36] a pension scheme was set up for employees of the newly established NHS,^[37] and the Radioactive Substances Act of 1948 set out general provisions to control radioactive substances.^[38] Numerous lesser reforms were also introduced, some of which were of great benefit to certain segments of British society, such as the mentally deficient and the blind.^[39] Between 1948–51, Attlee's government increased spending on health from £6 billion to £11 billion, an increase of over 80%, and from 2.1% to 3.6% of GDP.^[40]

Welfare

The government set about implementing William Beveridge's plans for the creation of a 'cradle to grave' welfare state, and set in place an entirely new system of social security. Among the most important pieces of legislation was the National Insurance Act 1946, in which people in work paid a flat rate of national insurance. In return, they (and the wives of male contributors) were eligible for flat-rate pensions, sickness benefit, unemployment benefit, and funeral benefit. Various other pieces of legislation provided for child benefit and support for people with no other source of income.^[41] In 1949, unemployment, sickness and maternity benefits were exempted from tax.^[42]

A block grant introduced in 1948 helped the social services provided by local authorities.^[43] Personal Social Services or welfare services were developed in 1948 for individual and families in general, particularly special groups such as the mentally disordered, deprived children, the elderly, and the handicapped.^[44]

The Attlee Government increased pensions and other benefits, with pensions raised to become more of a living income than they had been. War pensions and allowances (for both world wars) were increased by an Act of 1946 which gave the wounded man with an allowance for his wife and children if he married after he had been wounded, thereby removing a grievance of more than twenty years standing.^[45] Other improvements were made in war pensions during Attlee’s tenure as prime minister. A Constant Attendance Allowance was tripled, an Unemployability Allowance was tripled from 10s to 30s a week, and a special hardship allowance of up to £1 a week was introduced. In addition, the 1951 Budget made further improvements in the supplementary allowances for many war pensioners. From 1945 onwards, three out of every four pension claims had been successful, whilst after the First World War only one pension claim in three was allowed.^[46] Under the Superannuation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act of 1948, employees of a body representative of local authorities or of the officers of local authorities could be admitted “on suitable terms to the superannuation fund of a local authority.”^[47]

A more extensive system of social welfare benefits was established by the Attlee Government, which did much to reduce acute social deprivation. The cumulative impact of the Attlee's Government's health and welfare policies was such that all the indices of health (such as statistics of school medical or dental officers, or of medical officers of health) showed signs of improvement, with continual improvements in survival rates for infants and increased life expectancy for the elderly.^[43] The success of the Attlee Government's welfare legislation in reducing poverty was such that, in the general election of 1950, according to one study, "Labour propaganda could make much of the claim that social security had eradicated the most abject destitution of the 1930s".^[31]

Housing

The New Towns Act of 1946 set up development corporations to construct new towns, while the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947 instructed county councils to prepare development plans and also provided compulsory purchase powers.^[48] The Attlee Government also extended the powers of local authorities to requisition houses and parts of houses, and made the acquisition of land less difficult than before.^[49] The Housing (Scotland) Act of 1949 provided grants of 75% (87.5% in the highlands and islands) towards modernisation costs payable by Treasury to local authorities.^[50]

In 1949, local authorities were empowered to provide people suffering from poor health with public housing at subsidised rents.^[51]

To assist home ownership, the limit on the amount of money that people could borrow from their local authority in order to purchase or build a home was raised from £800 to £1,500 in 1945, and to £5,000 in 1949.^[52] Under the National Assistance act of 1948, local authorities had a duty "to provide emergency temporary accommodation for families which become homeless through no fault of their own."^[53]

A large house-building programme was carried out with the intention of providing millions of people with high-quality homes.^[31] A housing bill passed in 1946 increased Treasury subsidies for the construction of local authority housing in England and Wales.^[48] Four out of five houses constructed under Labour were council properties built to more generous specifications than before the Second World War, and subsidies kept down council rents. Altogether, these policies provided public-sector housing with its biggest ever boost up until that point, while low-wage earners particularly benefited from these developments. Although the Attlee Government failed to meet its targets, primarily due to economic constraints, over a million new homes were built between 1945-51 (a significant achievement under the circumstances) which ensured that decent, affordable housing was available to many low-income families for the first time ever.^[31]

Women and children

A number of reforms were embarked upon to improve conditions for women and children. In 1946, universal family allowances were introduced to provide financial support to households for raising children.^[54][55] These benefits had been legislated for the previous year by Churchill's Family Allowances Act 1945, and was the first measure pushed through parliament by Attlee's government.^[56] Conservatives would later criticise Labour for having been "too hasty" in introducing family allowances.^[49]

A Married Women (Restraint Upon Anticipation) Act was passed in 1949 "to equalise, to render inoperative any restrictions upon anticipation or alienation attached to the enjoyment of property by a woman," while the Married Women (Maintenance) Act of 1949 was enacted with the intention of improving the adequacy and duration of financial benefits for married women.^[57]

The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act of 1950 amended an Act of 1885 to bring prostitutes within the law and safeguard them from abduction and abuse.^[58] The Criminal Justice Act of 1948 restricted imprisonment for juveniles and brought improvements to the probation and remand centres systems, while the passage of the Justices of the Peace Act of 1949 led to extensive reforms of magistrates courts.^[59] The Attlee Government also abolished the marriage bar in the Civil Service, thereby enabling married women to work in that institution.^[60]

In 1946, the government set up a National Institute of Houseworkers as a means of providing a social democratic variety of domestic service.^[61]

By late 1946, agreed standards of training were established, which was followed by the opening of a training headquarters and the opening of an additional nine (9) training centres in Wales, Scotland, and then throughout Great Britain. The National Health Service Act of 1946 indicated that domestic help should be provided for households where that help is required "owing to the presence of any person who is ill, lying-in, an expectant mother, mentally defective, aged or a child not over compulsory school age". 'Home help' therefore included the provision of home-helps for nursing and expectant mothers and for mothers with children under the age of five, and by 1952 some 20,000 women were engaged in this service.^[62]

Planning and development

Development rights were nationalised while the government attempted to take all development profits for the State. Strong planning authorities were set up to control land use, and issued manuals of guidance which stressed the importance of safeguarding agricultural land. A strong chain of regional offices was set up within its planning ministry to provide a strong lead in regional development policies.^[63]

Comprehensive Development Areas (CDAs), a designation under the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, allowed local authorities to acquire property in the designated areas using powers of compulsory purchase in order to re-plan and develop urban areas suffering from urban blight or war damage.^[64]

Workers' rights

Various measures were carried out to improve conditions in the workplace. Entitlement to sick leave was greatly extended, and sick pay schemes were introduced for local authority administrative, professional and technical workers in 1946 and for various categories of manual workers in 1948.^[65] Worker's compensation was also significantly improved.^[66]

The Fair Wages Resolution of 1946 required any contractor working on a public project to at least match the pay rates and other employment conditions set in the appropriate collective agreement.^[67][68][69] In 1946, purchase tax was removed completely from kitchen fittings and crockery, while the rate was reduced on various gardening items.^[61]

The Fire Services Act 1947 introduced a new pension scheme for fire-fighters,^[70] while the Electricity Act 1947 introduced better retirement benefits for workers in that industry.^[71] A Workers' Compensation (Supplementation) Act was passed in 1948 that introduced benefits for workers with certain asbestos-related diseases which had occurred before 1948.^[72] The Merchant Shipping Act of 1948 and the Merchant Shipping (Safety Convention) Act of 1949 were passed to improve conditions for seamen. The Shops Act of 1950 consolidated previous legislation which provided that no one could be employed in a shop for more than six hours without having a break for at least 20 minutes. The legislation also required a lunch break of at least 45 minutes for anyone for worked between 11:30 am and 2:30 pm and a half-hour tea break for anyone working between 4 pm and 7 pm.^[73] The government also strengthened a Fair Wages Resolution, with a clause that required all employers getting government contracts to recognise the rights of their workers to join trade unions.^[74]

The Trades Disputes Act 1927 was repealed, and a Dock Labour Scheme was introduced in 1947 to put an end to the casual system of hiring labour in the docks.^[75] This scheme gave registered dockers the legal right to minimum work and decent conditions. Through the National Dock Labour Board (on which trade unions and employers had equal representation) the unions acquired control over recruitment and dismissal. Registered dockers laid off by employers within the Scheme had the right either to be taken on by another, or to generous compensation.^[76] All dockers were registered under the Dock Labour Scheme, giving them a legal right to minimum work, holidays and sick pay.^[77]

Wages for members of the police force were significantly increased.^[78] The introduction of a Miner's Charter in 1946 instituted a five-day work week for miners and a standardised day wage structure,^[43] and in 1948 a Colliery Workers Supplementary Scheme was approved, providing supplementary allowances to disabled coal-workers and their dependants.^[79][80] In 1948, a pension scheme was set up to provide pension benefits for employees of the new NHS, as well as their dependents.^[81] Under the Coal Industry Nationalisation (Superannuation) Regulations of 1950, a pension scheme for mineworkers was established.^[82] Improvements were also made in farmworkers' wages,^[46] and the Agricultural Wages Board in 1948 not only safeguarded wage levels, but also ensured that workers were provided with accommodation.^[83]

A number of regulations aimed at safeguarding the health and safety of people at work were also introduced during Attlee's time in office. Regulations were issued in February 1946 applying to factories involved with “manufacturing briquettes or blocks of fuel consisting of coal, coal dust, coke or slurry with pitch as a binding .substance,” and which concerned “dust and ventilation, washing facilities and clothing accommodation, medical supervision and examination, skin and eye protection and messrooms.”^[84]

The Magnesium (Grinding of Castings and Other Articles) (Special Regulations) Order of December 1946 contained special measures “respecting the maintenance of plant and apparatus; precautions against causing sparks; the interception and removal of dust; automatic operation of appliances; protective clothing; and prohibition of smoking, open lights and fires.”^[85] For those workers engaged in luminising processes, the Factories (Luminising) Special Regulations (1947) prohibited the employment of those under the age of 18 and ordered “an initial medical examination to be carried out before the seventh day of employment; subsequent examinations are to be carried out once a month.”Under the terms of the Blasting (Castings and Other Articles) Special Regulations (1949) “no sand or other substance containing free silica is to be employed in any blasting process,” while the Foundries (Parting Materials) Special Regulations (1950) prohibited the use of certain parting powders “which give rise to a substantial risk of silicosis.”^[86]

The Building (Safety, Health & Welfare) Regulations of 1948 required that measures should be taken to minimise exposure to potentially harmful dust or fumes,^[87] while the Pottery (Health) Special Regulations (1947) prohibited the use “except in the manufacture of glazed tiles" of all “but leadless or low solubility glazes and prescribe certain processes in which ground or powdered flint or quartz are not to be employed.”^[86] while the Pottery (Health and Welfare) Special Regulations of 1950 made provision for the health and safety of workers employed in factories "in which there is carried on the manufacture or decoration of pottery or certain allied manufactures or processes."^[88]

Law

Various law reforms were also carried out by Attlee's government. The Criminal Justice Act of 1948 provided for new methods to deal with offenders, and abolished hard labour, penal servitude, prison divisions and whipping.^[89] The Law Reform (Personal Injuries) Act 1948 enabled employees to sue their employers in cases where they experienced injury due to the negligence of a fellow employee.^[90] The Legal Aid and Advice Act of 1949 introduced a State aided scheme to assist those who couldn't afford legal services.^[91]

Nationalisation

Britain's railways and other industries were nationalised under the Attlee government.

Attlee's government also carried out their manifesto commitment for nationalisation of basic industries and public utilities. The Bank of England and civil aviation were nationalised in 1946. Coal mining, the railways, road haulage, canals and Cable and Wireless were nationalised in 1947, electricity and gas followed in 1948. The steel industry was nationalised in 1951. By 1951 about 20% of the British economy had been taken into public ownership.^[41]

Nationalisation failed to provide workers with a greater say in the running of the industries in which they worked. It did, however, bring about significant material gains for workers in the form of higher wages, reduced working hours,^[92] and improvements in working conditions, especially in regards to safety.^[93] As historian Eric Shaw noted of the years following nationalisation, the electricity and gas supply companies became "impressive models of public enterprise" in terms of efficiency, and the National Coal Board was not only profitable, but working conditions for miners had significantly improved as well.^[94]

Within a few years of nationalisation, a number of progressive measures had been carried out which did much to improve conditions in the mines, including better pay, a five-day working week, a national safety scheme (with proper standards at all the collieries), a ban on boys under the age of 16 going underground, the introduction of training for newcomers before going down to the coalface, and the making of pithead baths into a standard facility.^[95]

The newly established National Coal Board offered sick pay and holiday pay to miners.^[96] As noted by Martin Francis:

"Union leaders saw nationalisation as a means to pursue a more advantageous position within a framework of continued conflict, rather than as an opportunity to replace the old adversarial form of industrial relations. Moreover, most workers in nationalised industries exhibited an essentially instrumentalist attitude, favouring public ownership because it secured job security and improved wages rather than because it promised the creation of a new set of socialists relationships in the workplace."^[61]

Agriculture

The Attlee Government placed strong emphasis on improving the quality of life in rural areas, benefiting both farmers and other consumers. Security of tenure for farmers was introduced, while consumers were protected by food subsidies and the redistributive effects of deficiency payments. Between 1945-51, the quality of rural life was improved by improvements in gas, electricity, and water services, as well as in leisure and public amenities. In addition, the 1947 Transport Act improved provision of rural bus services, while the Agriculture Act 1947 established a more generous subsidy system for farmers.^[43] Legislation was also passed in 1947 and 1948 which established a permanent Agricultural Wages Board to fix minimum wages for agricultural workers.^[97][98]

Attlee's government made it possible for farm workers to borrow up to 90% of the cost of building their own houses, and received a subsidy of £15 a year for 40 years towards that cost.^[61] Grants were also made to meet up to half the cost of supplying water to farm buildings and fields, the government met half the cost of bracken eradication and lime spreading, and grants were paid for bringing hill farming land into use that had previously been considered unfit for farming purposes.^[46]

In 1946, the National Agricultural Advisory Service was set up to supply agricultural advice and information.^[99] The Hill Farming Act of 1946 introduced for upland areas a system of grants for buildings, land improvement, and infrastructural improvements such as roads and electrification. The Act also continued a system of headage payments for hill sheep and cattle that had been introduced during the war. The Agricultural Holdings Act of 1948 enabled (in effect) tenant farmers to have lifelong tenancies and made provision for compensation in the event of cessations of tenancies.^[100] In addition, the Livestock Rearing Act of March 1951^[101] extended the provisions of the 1946 Hill Farming Act to the upland store cattle and sheep sector.^[102]

At a time of world food shortages, it was vital that farmers produced the maximum possible quantities. The government encouraged farmers via subsidies for modernisation, while the National Agricultural Advisory Service provided expertise and price guarantees. As a result of the Attlee Government's initiatives in agriculture, there was a 20% increase in output between 1947 and 1952, while Britain adopted one of the most mechanised and efficient farming industries in the world.^[33]

Education

The Attlee Government ensured provisions of the Education Act 1944 were fully implemented, with free secondary education becoming a right for the first time. Fees in state grammar schools were eliminated, while new, modern secondary schools were constructed.^[103]

The school leaving age was raised to 15 in 1947, an accomplishment helped brought into fruition by initiatives such as the H.O.R.S.A. ("Huts Operation for Raising the School-leaving Age") scheme and the S.F.O.R.S.A. (furniture) scheme.^[104] University scholarships were introduced to ensure that no one who was qualified “should be deprived of a university education for financial reasons,”^[105] while a large school building programme was organised.^[106] A rapid increase in the number of trained teachers took place, and the number of new school places was increased.^[107]

Increased Treasury funds were made available for education, particularly for upgrading school buildings suffering from years of neglect and war damage.^[108] Prefabricated classrooms were built and 928 new primary schools were constructed between 1945-50. The provision of free school meals was expanded, and opportunities for university entrants were increased.^[109] State scholarships to universities were increased,^[110] and the government adopted a policy of supplementing university scholarships awards to a level sufficient to cover fees plus maintenance.^[104]

Many thousands of ex-servicemen were assisted to go through college who could never have contemplated it before the war.^[45] Free milk was also made available to all schoolchildren for the first time.^[111] In addition, spending on technical education rose, and the number of nursery schools was increased.^[112] Salaries for teachers were also improved, and funds were allocated towards improving existing schools.^[49]

In 1947, the Arts Council of Great Britain was set up to encourage the arts.^[113]

A Ministry of Education was established, and free County Colleges were set up for the compulsory part-time instruction of teenagers between the ages of 15 and 18 who were not in full-time education.^[114] An Emergency Training Scheme was also introduced which turned out an extra 25,000 teachers in 1945–51.^[115] In 1947, Regional Advisory Councils were set up to bring together industry and education to find out the needs of young workers "and advise on the provision required, and to secure reasonable economy of provision."^[116] That same year, thirteen Area Training Organisations were set up in England and one in Wales to coordinate teacher training.^[117]

Attlee's government, however, failed to introduce the comprehensive education for which many socialists had hoped (as a means of making the educational system based more on merit and less on hereditary privilege.) This reform was eventually carried out by Harold Wilson's government. During its time in office, the Attlee Government increased spending on education by over 50%, from £6.5 billion to £10 billion.^[40]

Economy

The most significant problem facing Attlee and his ministers remained the economy, as the war effort had left Britain nearly bankrupt. The war had cost Britain about a quarter of her national wealth. Overseas investments had been used up to pay for the war. The transition to a peacetime economy, and the maintaining of strategic military commitments abroad led to continuous and severe problems with the balance of trade. This resulted in strict rationing of food and other essential goods continuing in the post war period to force a reduction in consumption in an effort to limit imports, boost exports, and stabilise the Pound Sterling so that Britain could trade its way out of its financial state.

The abrupt end of the American Lend-Lease program in August 1945 almost caused a crisis. Some relief was provided by the Anglo-American loan, negotiated in December 1945. The conditions attached to the loan included making the pound fully convertible to the US$. When this was introduced in July 1947, it led to a currency crisis and convertibility had to be suspended after just five weeks.^[41] The UK benefited from the American Marshall Aid program in 1948, and the economic situation improved significantly. Another balance of payments crisis in 1949 forced Chancellor of the Exchequer, Stafford Cripps, into devaluation of the pound.^[41]

Despite these problems, one of the main achievements of Attlee's government was the maintenance of near full employment. The government maintained most of the wartime controls over the economy, including control over the allocation of materials and manpower, and unemployment rarely rose above 500,000, or 3% of the total workforce.^[41] Labour shortages proved to be a more frequent problem. The inflation rate was also kept low during his term.^[94] The rate of unemployment rarely rose above 2% during Attlee's time in office, whilst there was no hard-core of long-term unemployed. Both production and productivity rose as a result of new equipment, while the average working week was shortened.^[118]

The government was less successful in housing, which was the responsibility of Aneurin Bevan. The government had a target to build 400,000 new houses a year to replace those which had been destroyed in the war, but shortages of materials and manpower meant that less than half this number were built. Nevertheless, millions of people were rehoused as a result of the Attlee government's housing policies. Between August 1945 and December 1951, 1,016,349 new homes were completed in England, Scotland, and Wales.^[119]

When the Attlee Government was voted out of office in 1951, the economy had been improved compared to 1945. The period from 1946 to 1951 saw continuous full employment and steadily rising living standards, which increased by about 10% each year. During that same period, the economy grew by 3% a year, and by 1951 the UK had "the best economic performance in Europe, while output per person was increasing faster than in the United States."^[120] Careful planning after 1945 also ensured that demobilisation was carried out without having a negative impact upon economic recovery, and that unemployment stayed at very low levels.^[108] In addition, the number of motor cars on the roads rose from 3 million to 5 million from 1945–51, and seaside holidays were taken by far more people than ever before.^[39] A Monopolies and Restrictive Practices (Inquiry and Control) Act was passed in 1948, which allowed for investigations of restrictive practices and monopolies.^[47]

Energy

1947 proved to be a particularly difficult year for the government; an exceptionally cold winter that year caused coal mines to freeze and cease production, creating widespread power cuts and food shortages. The Minister of Fuel and Power, Emanuel Shinwell was widely blamed for failing to ensure adequate coal stocks, and soon resigned from his post. The Conservatives capitalised on the crisis with the slogan 'Starve with Strachey and shiver with Shinwell' (referring to the Minister of Food John Strachey).^[121]

The crisis led to an unsuccessful plot by Hugh Dalton to replace Attlee as Prime Minister with Ernest Bevin. Later that year Stafford Cripps tried to persuade Attlee to stand aside for Bevin. These plots petered out after Bevin refused to cooperate.^[3] Later that year, Hugh Dalton resigned as Chancellor after inadvertently leaking details of the budget to a journalist. He was replaced by Cripps.

Foreign policy

Attlee with Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin at the 1945 Potsdam Conference.

Europe and the Cold War

In foreign affairs, the Attlee Government was concerned with four main issues; post-war Europe, the onset of the Cold War, the establishment of the United Nations, and decolonisation. The first two were closely related, and Attlee was assisted by Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin. Attlee also attended the later stages of the Potsdam Conference, where he negotiated with President Harry S. Truman and general secretary Joseph Stalin.

In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Government faced the challenge of managing relations with Britain's former war-time ally, Stalin and the Soviet Union. Ernest Bevin was a passionate anti-communist, based largely on his experience of fighting communist influence in the trade union movement. Bevin's initial approach to the USSR as Foreign Secretary was "wary and suspicious, but not automatically hostile".^[122] Attlee himself sought warm relations with Stalin. He put his trust in the United Nations, rejected notions that the Soviet Union was bent on world conquest, and warned that treating Moscow as an enemy would turn it into one. This put Attlee at sword's point with his foreign minister, the Foreign Office, and the military who all saw the Soviets as a growing threat to Britain's role in the Middle East. Suddenly in January 1947, Attlee reversed his position and agreed with Bevin on a hard-line anti-Soviet policy.^[123]

In an early "good-will" gesture that was later heavily criticised, the Attlee Government allowed the Soviets access, under the terms of a 1946 UK-USSR Trade Agreement, to several Rolls-Royce Nene jet engines. The Soviets, who at the time were well behind the West in jet technology, reverse-engineered the Nene and installed their own version in the MiG-15 interceptor, used to good effect against US-UK forces in the subsequent Korean War, as well as in several later MiG models.^[124]

After Stalin took political control of most of Eastern Europe, and began to subvert other governments in the Balkans, Attlee's and Bevin's worst fears of Soviet intentions were realized. The Attlee Government then became instrumental in the creation of the successful NATO defence alliance to protect Western Europe against any Soviet aggression.^{[125][126][127]} In a crucial contribution to the economic stability of post-war Europe, Attlee's Cabinet was instrumental in promoting the American Marshall Plan for the economic recovery of Europe.

A group of Labour MPs, organised under the banner of "Keep Left", urged the government to steer a middle way between the two emerging superpowers, and advocated the creation of a "third force" of European powers to stand between the US and USSR. However, deteriorating relations between Britain and the USSR, as well as Britain's economic reliance on America following the Marshall Plan, steered policy towards supporting the US.^[41] In January 1947, fear of both Soviet and American nuclear intentions led to a secret meeting of the Cabinet, where the decision was made to press ahead with the development of Britain's independent nuclear deterrent, an issue which later caused a split in the Labour Party. Britain's first successful nuclear test, however, did not occur until 1952, one year after Attlee had left office.^[41]

The London dock strike of July 1949, led by Communists, was suppressed when the Attlee government sent in 13,000 Army troops and passed special legislation to promptly end the strike. His response reveals Attlee's growing concern that Soviet expansionism, supported by the British Communist Party, was a genuine threat to national security, and that the docks were highly vulnerable to sabotage ordered by Moscow. He noted that the strike was caused not by local grievances but in order to help Communist unions who were on strike in Canada. Attlee agreed with MI5 that he faced, "a very present menace."^[128]

Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin (left) with Clement Attlee in 1945.

Decolonisation

The Attlee Government was responsible for beginning the process of decolonisation of the British Empire, starting by granting independence to India. Attlee appointed Lord Louis Mountbatten to be the Viceroy of India when he first became Prime Minister, and agreed to Mountbatten's request for plenipotentiary powers for negotiating Indian independence. In view of implacable demands by the political leadership of, in particular, the Islamic community in British India for a separate Muslim homeland, Mountbatten conceded the notion of two nations consisting of a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan (which incorporated East Pakistan, now Bangladesh).

The drawing of borders was accomplished at the cost of large-scale population movements and heavy communal bloodshed on both sides. The independence of Burma and Ceylon was also negotiated around this time. Some of the new countries became British Dominions, the genesis of the modern Commonwealth of Nations.^[41]

One of the most urgent problems concerned the future of the Palestine Mandate. British policies there were perceived by the Zionist movement and the Truman Administration as pro-Arab and anti-Jewish. In the face of an armed revolt of Jewish militant groups and increasing violence of the local Arab population, Britain had found itself unable to control events. This was a very unpopular commitment, and the evacuation of British troops and subsequent handing over of the issue to the United Nations was widely supported by the public.^[41]

The government's policies with regard to the other colonies, particularly those in Africa, were very different. A major military base was built in Kenya, and the African colonies came under an unprecedented degree of direct control from London. Development schemes were implemented to help solve Britain's desperate post-war balance of payments crisis and raise African living standards. This "new colonialism" was generally a failure, at times even spectacularly so, such as the Tanganyika groundnut scheme.^[41]

1950 election

The 1950 election gave Labour a massively reduced majority of five seats compared to the triple-digit majority of 1945. Although re-elected, the result was seen by Attlee as very disappointing, and was widely attributed to the effects of post-war austerity denting Labour's appeal to middle class voters.^[129] With such a small majority leaving him dependent on a small number of MPs to govern, Attlee's second term would prove to be much tamer compared with his first. Some major reforms were nevertheless passed, particularly regarding industry in urban areas and regulations to limit air and water pollution.^[130]

1951 election

By 1951, the Attlee Government was exhausted, with several of its most senior ministers ailing, ageing or deceased, and with a lack of new ideas.^[131] Attlee's record for settling internal differences in the Labour Party fell in April 1951, when there was a damaging split over an austerity Budget brought in by the Chancellor, Hugh Gaitskell, to pay for the cost of Britain's participation in the Korean War. Aneurin Bevan resigned to protest against the new charges for "teeth and spectacles" in the National Health Service introduced by that Budget, and was joined in this action by several senior ministers, including the future Prime Minister Harold Wilson, then the President of the Board of Trade.^[41]

Finding it increasingly impossible to govern, and not wanting to continue to be at the mercy of a small number of MPs, Attlee eventually called a snap election in October 1951, in the hope of achieving a more workable majority and to regain authority. However, Labour went on to narrowly lose the election to the Conservative Party, despite winning considerably more votes (achieving the largest Labour vote in electoral history). Attlee tendered his resignation as Prime Minister the following day. His term of six years and three months as Prime Minister was the longest unbroken time spent by any Labour Leader as Prime Minister until Tony Blair more than 50 years later. Although Harold Wilson did manage a total of almost eight years as Prime Minister, that took place across two different spells between 1964 and 1976.^[132]

Retirement

Following the defeat in 1951, Attlee continued to lead the party as Leader of the Opposition. His last four years as leader were, however, widely seen as one of the Labour Party's weaker periods.^[41]

The party split between its right wing, led by Hugh Gaitskell, and its left, led by Aneurin Bevan. Many Labour MPs felt that Attlee should have retired after the 1951 election and allowed a younger man to lead the party. Bevan openly called for him to stand down in the summer of 1954.^[133] One of his main reasons for staying on as leader was to frustrate the leadership ambitions of Herbert Morrison, whom Attlee disliked for both political and personal reasons.^[41] At one time, Attlee had favoured Aneurin Bevan to succeed him as leader, but this became problematic after Bevan almost irrevocably split the party.^[3]

In an interview with the News Chronicle columnist Percy Cudlipp in mid-September 1955, Attlee made clear his own thinking together with his preference for the leadership succession, stating: "Labour has nothing to gain by dwelling in the past. Nor do I think we can impress the nation by adopting a futile left-wingism. I regard myself as Left of Centre which is where a Party Leader ought to be. It is no use asking, 'What would Keir Hardie have done?' We must have at the top men brought up in the present age, not, as I was, in the Victorian Age."^[134]

Attlee, now 72 years of age, contested the 1955 general election against Anthony Eden, which saw the Conservative majority increase from seventeen to sixty. He retired as Leader of the Labour Party on 25 November 1955, having led Labour for twenty years, and was succeeded by Hugh Gaitskell.^[12]

Coat of arms of the Earls Attlee

He subsequently retired from the Commons and was elevated to the peerage to take his seat in the House of Lords as Earl Attlee and Viscount Prestwood on 16 December 1955.^[26] In 1958 he was, along with Bertrand Russell, one of a group of notables to establish the Homosexual Law Reform Society. The society campaigned for the decriminalisation of homosexual acts in private by consenting adults, a reform which was voted through parliament nine years later.

He attended Churchill's funeral in January 1965. He was elderly and frail by that time, and had to remain seated in the freezing cold as the coffin was carried, having tired himself out by standing at the rehearsal the previous day. After the service, Attlee had to be helped down the steps of St Paul's Cathedral by Sir Anthony Eden and a Guards officer. A heavy pipe and cigarette smoker from an early age, Attlee had breathing problems in his later years. He lived to see Labour return to power under Harold Wilson in 1964, but also to see his old constituency of Walthamstow West fall to the Conservatives in a by-election in September 1967.

Death

Attlee died of pneumonia at the age of 84 at Westminster Hospital on 8 October 1967.^[3]

Upon his death, the title passed to his son Martin Richard Attlee, 2nd Earl Attlee (1927–91). It is now held by Clement Attlee's grandson John Richard Attlee, 3rd Earl Attlee. The third earl (a member of the Conservative Party) retained his seat in the Lords as one of the hereditary peers to remain under an amendment to Labour's 1999 House of Lords Act.

Attlee's estate was sworn for probate purposes at a value of £7,295, a relatively modest sum for so prominent a figure. He was cremated and his ashes buried in the nave of Westminster Abbey, close to those of Lord Passfield and Ernest Bevin.

Styles of address

• 1883–1922: Mr Clement R. Attlee
• 1922–1931: Mr Clement R. Attlee MP
• 1931–1945: The Right Honourable Clement R. Attlee MP
• 1945–1947: The Right Honourable Clement R. Attlee CH MP
• 1947–1951: The Right Honourable Clement R. Attlee CH MP FRS^[1]
• 1951–1955: The Right Honourable Clement R. Attlee OM CH MP FRS
• 1955–1956: The Right Honourable The First Earl Attlee OM CH PC FRS
• 1956–1967: The Right Honourable The First Earl Attlee KG OM CH PC FRS

Legacy

"A modest man, but then he has so much to be modest about", is a quote about Attlee that is very commonly ascribed to Churchill (although Churchill in fact denied saying it, and respected Attlee's service in the War Cabinet).^[135] Attlee's modesty and quiet manner hid a great deal that has only come to light with historical reappraisal. In terms of the machinery of government, he was one of the most businesslike and effective of all the British prime ministers.

His leadership style of consensual government, acting as a chairman rather than a president, won him much praise from historians and politicians alike. Christopher Soames, Britain's Ambassador to France during the government of Edward Heath and cabinet minister under Margaret Thatcher, remarked that "Mrs. Thatcher was not really running a team. Every time you have a Prime Minister who wants to make all the decisions, it mainly leads to bad results. Attlee didn't. That's why he was so damn good."^[136]

Thatcher herself wrote in her 1995 memoirs, which charted her beginnings in Grantham to her victory in the 1979 General Election, that she admired Attlee, writing: "Of Clement Attlee, however, I was an admirer. He was a serious man and a patriot. Quite contrary to the general tendency of politicians in the 1990s, he was all substance and no show".

Attlee's administration presided over the successful transition from a wartime economy to peacetime, tackling problems of demobilisation, shortages of foreign currency, and adverse deficits in trade balances and government expenditure. Further domestic policies that he brought about included the establishment of the National Health Service and post-war Welfare State, which became key to the reconstruction of post-war Britain. Attlee and his ministers did much to transform Britain into a more prosperous and egalitarian society during their time in office with reductions in poverty and a rise in the general economic security of the population.^[137]

Statue of Attlee in its former position outside Limehouse Library

In foreign affairs, he did much to assist with the post-war economic recovery of Europe. He proved a loyal ally of America at the onset of the cold war. Because of his style of leadership it was not he but Ernest Bevin who masterminded foreign policy. It was Attlee's government that decided Britain should have an independent atomic weapons programme, and work began on it in 1947.

Bevin, Attlee's Foreign Secretary, famously stated that "We've got to have it and it's got to have a bloody Union Jack on it." The first operational British A Bomb was not detonated until October 1952, about one year after Attlee had left office. Independent British atomic research was prompted partly by the US McMahon Act, which nullified wartime expectations of postwar US-British collaboration in nuclear research, and prohibited Americans from communicating nuclear technology even to allied countries. British atomic bomb research was kept secret even from some members of Attlee's own cabinet, whose loyalty or discretion seemed uncertain.^[138]

Although a socialist, Attlee still believed in the British Empire of his youth. He thought of it as an institution that was a power for good in the world. Nevertheless, he saw that a large part of it needed to be self-governing. Using the Dominions of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand as a model, he continued the transformation of the Empire into the Commonwealth.

His greatest achievement, surpassing many of these, was, perhaps, the establishment of a political and economic consensus about the governance of Britain that all parties, whether Labour, Conservative or Liberal subscribed to for three decades, fixing the arena of political discourse until the later 1970s. In 2004 he was voted the most successful British Prime Minister of the 20th Century by a poll of 139 academics organised by Ipsos MORI.^[139]

Several years after his death, a street on a new housing development in Tividale, West Midlands, was named Attlee Close in his memory. The Birks Holt social housing estate in Maltby, South Yorkshire has its streets named after Labour politicians, including Attlee, Sir Stafford Cripps, Hugh Gaitskell and George Lansbury.

On 30 November 1988, a bronze statue of Clement Attlee was unveiled by Harold Wilson (the next Labour prime minister after Attlee) outside Limehouse Library in his former constituency.^[140] By then Wilson was the last surviving member of Attlee's cabinet^[141] and the unveiling of the statue would be the last public appearance by Wilson, who was by then in the first stages of Alzheimer's Disease and who died in May 1995.^[142]

In April 2011, Limehouse Library having closed in 2003, the Attlee statue was unveiled in its new home at Queen Mary University of London.^[143] Attlee was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1947.^[1] Attlee was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of Queen Mary College on 15 December 1948.^[144]

A blue plaque unveiled in 1979 commemorates Attlee at 17 Monkhams Avenue, in Woodford Green in the London borough of Redbridge.^[145]

Religious views

Although one of his brothers became a clergyman and one of his sisters a missionary, Attlee himself is usually regarded as an agnostic. In an interview he described himself as "incapable of religious feeling", saying that he believed in "the ethics of Christianity" but not "the mumbo-jumbo". When asked whether he was an agnostic, Attlee replied "I don't know".^[146]

Appearance in popular culture

Literature

Attlee composed this limerick about himself to demonstrate how he was often underestimated:^[147]

Few thought he was even a starter.
There were many who thought themselves smarter.
But he finished PM,
CH and OM,
An earl and a Knight of the Garter.

An alternative version also exists, which may reflect Attlee's use of English more closely:^[148]

There were few who thought him a starter,
Many who thought themselves smarter.
But he ended PM,
CH and OM,
an Earl and a Knight of the Garter.

Drama

• Played by Patrick Troughton in Edward & Mrs. Simpson.
• A character in the play Tom and Clem, by Stephen Churchett. In the original production in 1997, Alec McCowen played Attlee, and Michael Gambon played Tom Driberg.
• Played by Alan David in the final episode of the BBC sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart,
• The main character in the BBC Radio 4 Saturday Play That Man Attlee. Broadcast on 15 September 2007, it was written by Robin Glendinning, with Bill Wallis playing Attlee.
• Played by his grandson Richard Attlee, in the TV series Dunkirk in 2004, and in Jerome Vincent's 'Stuffing Their Mouths with Gold'; the story of how the National Health Service came to be. Broadcast on Radio 4 on 4 July 2008, the day before the 60th anniversary of the founding of the NHS.
• Played by Bill Paterson in Into the Storm (2009).
• Played by Michael Sheldon in 'Three Days in May' by Ben Brown on a national tour and at Trafalgar Studios (2011–12).

Major legislation enacted during the Attlee Government

• Housing (Financial and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1946
• Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946
• Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act 1946
• National Health Service Act 1946
• National Insurance Act 1946
• National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1946
• New Towns Act 1946
• Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act 1946
• Hill Farming Act 1946
• Agriculture Act 1947
• Pensions (Increase) Act 1947
• Electricity Act 1947
• Town and Country Planning Act 1947
• Transport Act 1947
• National Assistance Act 1948
• Children Act 1948
• Factories Act 1948
• Education (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1948
• Agricultural Holdings Act 1948
• Employment and Training Act 1948
• Nurseries and Child-Minders Regulation Act 1948
• Law Reform (Personal Injuries) Act 1948
• Local Government Act 1948
• Representation of the People Act 1948
• Housing Act 1949
• Superannuation Act 1949
• House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949
• Landlord and Tenant (Rent Control) Act 1949
• Lands Tribunal Act 1949
• Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949
• Adoption of Children Act 1949
• Marriage Act 1949
• National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949
• Parliament Act 1949
• Representation of the People Act 1949
• Distribution of Industry Act 1950
• Coal-Mining (Subsidence) Act 1950
• Allotments Act 1950
• Workmen's Compensation (Supplementation) Act 1951

Notes

1. "British Labour Party election manifesto, 1945 [archived]". Retrieved 9 January 2016.

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Bibliography

• Hennessy, Peter (2006). Never Again: Britain 1945–51 (2 ed.). London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-101602-7.
• Clement Attlee published his memoirs, As it Happened, in 1954.
• Francis Williams' A Prime Minister Remembers, based on interviews with Attlee, was published in 1961.

Attlee's other publications

• The Social Worker (1920);
• Metropolitan Borough Councils Their Constitution, Powers and Duties - Fabian Tract No 190 (1920)
• The Town Councillor (1925);
• The Will and the Way to Socialism (1935);
• The Labour Party in Perspective (1937);
• Collective Security Under the United Nations (1958);
• Empire into Commonwealth (1961).

Further reading

Biographies

• Beckett, Francis. Clem Attlee (1997) -- updated and revised and expanded edition, Clem Attlee: Labour's Great Reformer (2015)
• Burridge, Trevor. Clement Attlee: A Political Biography, (1985), scholarly
• Harris, Kenneth. Attlee (1982), scholarly authorized biography
• Howell, David. Attlee (2006)
• Jago, Michael. Clement Attlee: The Inevitable Prime Minister (2014)
• Jenkins, Roy, Mr Attlee (1948), by a leading politician
• Pearce, Robert. Attlee (1997), 206pp
• Thomas-Symonds, Nicklaus. Attlee: A Life in Politics (2010)
• Whiting, R. C. "Attlee, Clement Richard, first Earl Attlee (1883–1967)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004; online edn, Jan 2011 accessed 12 June 2013 doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/30498

Biographies of his Cabinet and associates

• Greg Rosen (ed) Dictionary of Labour Biography. Politicos Publishing; ISBN 1-902301-18-8

Scholarly studies of the period include

• Addison, Paul. No Turning Back: The Peaceful Revolutions of Post-War Britain (2011) excerpt and text search
• Robert A. Brady (1950). Crisis in Britain. Plans and Achievements of the Labour Government... University of California Press., detailed coverage of nationalisation, welfare state and planning
• Kynaston, David. Austerity Britain, 1945–1951 (2008)
• Morgan, Kenneth O. Labour in Power 1945–51 (Oxford University Press, 1984)
• Ovendale, R. ed., The foreign policy of the British Labour governments, 1945–51 (1984) ·
• Pugh, Martin. Speak for Britain!: A New History of the Labour Party (2011) excerpt and text search
• Rosen, Greg. Old Labour to New, Politicos Publishing (2005)
• Swift, John. Labour in Crisis: Clement Attlee & the Labour Party in Opposition, 1931–1940 (2001)
• Tomlinson, Jim. Democratic Socialism and Economic Policy: The Attlee Years, 1945–1951 (2002) Excerpt and text search

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Clement Attlee
• More about Clement Attlee on the Downing Street website.
• Works by or about Clement Attlee at Internet Archive
• Works by Clement Attlee at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)

Clement Attlee at Find a Grave

• Archival material relating to Clement Attlee listed at the UK National Archives
• Annotated bibliography for Clement Attlee from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
• Portraits of Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee at the National Portrait Gallery, London