Clement Attlee

"Attlee" redirects here. For other people named Attlee, see Attlee (name). For other uses, see Attlee (disambiguation).

The Right Honourable The Earl Attlee KG OM CH FRS PC
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	Office Created
Succeeded by	Herbert Morrison
Leader of the Opposition
In office 26 October 1951 – 25 November 1955
Monarchs	George VI Elizabeth II
Prime Minister	Winston Churchill Sir Anthony Eden
Preceded by	Winston Churchill
Succeeded by	Herbert Morrison
In office 23 May 1945 – 26 July 1945
Monarch	George VI
Prime Minister	Winston Churchill
Preceded by	Arthur Greenwood
Succeeded by	Winston Churchill
In office 25 October 1935 – 22 May 1940
Monarchs	George V Edward VIII George VI
Prime Minister	Stanley Baldwin Neville Chamberlain Winston Churchill
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 1933 – 25 October 1935
Leader	George Lansbury
Preceded by	John Robert Clynes
Succeeded by	Arthur Greenwood
Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs
In office 15 February 1942 – 24 September 1943
Prime Minister	Winston Churchill
Preceded by	Viscount Cranborne
Succeeded by	Viscount Cranborne
Minister of Defence
In office 27 July 1945 – 20 December 1946
Prime Minister	Himself
Preceded by	Winston Churchill
Succeeded by	A. V. Alexander
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
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 of Shulbrede
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 (1883-01-03)3 January 1883 London, United Kingdom
Died	8 October 1967(1967-10-08) (aged 84) London, United Kingdom
Resting place	Westminster Abbey
Political party	Labour
Spouse	Violet Attlee
Children	Janet Helen (Lady) Felicity Ann Martin Richard Alison Elizabeth
Alma mater	University College, Oxford
Profession	Lawyer, Soldier
Awards	1914–15 Star British War Medal Victory Medal Order of the Garter Order of Merit Order of the Companions of Honour
Military service
Allegiance	British Empire
Branch/service	British Army
Years of service	1914-1919
Rank	Major
Battles/wars	First World War   · Gallipoli Campaign   · Mesopotamian campaign   · Western Front

Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS (3 January 1883 – 8 October 1967) was a British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was the first person ever 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 landslide election victories in 1945 and 1950. He became the first Labour Prime Minister ever to serve a full term, as well as the first to command a Labour majority in Parliament, and remains to date the longest-ever serving Leader of the Labour Party.

First elected to Parliament in 1922 as the MP for Limehouse, he rose quickly to become a minister in the minority government led by Ramsay MacDonald in 1924. In 1931, after the Labour Party had suffered a disastrous election defeat, he was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. Four years later, he became the Leader of the Labour Party after the resignation of George Lansbury. After reversing Labour's previous policy of pacificism and appeasement, he became a fierce critic of Neville Chamberlain's attempts to negotiate with Adolf Hitler. After the outbreak of the Second World War, he took Labour into the coalition government formed by Winston Churchill. Initially serving in the Cabinet as the Lord Privy Seal, he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister two years later. In 1945, the coalition government was dissolved, and Attlee led Labour to win a huge majority in the ensuing general election.

The government he led architected 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 over three decades until Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979. His government also presided over the decolonisation of the majority of the British Empire, granting India, Pakistan, Burma, Ceylon and Jordan independence. After leading Labour to victory again in 1950, he resigned as Prime Minister following a narrow election defeat in 1951.

Highly regarded both historically and today, in 2004 he was voted the greatest British Prime Minister of the 20th Century by a poll of 139 academics organised by Ipsos MORI.

Early life and education

Attlee was born in Putney, London, the seventh of eight children. His father was Henry Attlee (1841–1908), a solicitor, and his mother was Ellen Bravery Watson (1847–1920). 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. During this time Attlee also played football for Fleet Town F.C.. Attlee then trained as a lawyer, and was called to the Bar in 1906.

Life and 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. Prior to this, his political views had been conservative. However, he was shocked by the poverty and deprivation he saw while working with slum children. He came to the view that private charity would never be sufficient to alleviate poverty, and only massive action and income redistribution by the state would have any serious effect. This sparked up a process of political evolution that saw him develop into a full-fledged supporter of socialism. He joined the Independent Labour Party in 1908, and became active in London local politics.

In 1909, he worked briefly as secretary for Beatrice Webb. Between 1909 and 1910, he worked as secretary for Toynbee Hall. In 1911 he took up a government job as an "official explainer", touring the country to explain 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.

Attlee became a lecturer at the London School of Economics in 1912, but promptly applied for an army officer commission following the outbreak of World War I in August 1914.

Military service during World War I

During World War I, Attlee was given the rank of captain and served with the South Lancashire Regiment in the Gallipoli Campaign in Turkey. After a period of fighting there, he became ill with dysentery and was sent to a hospital in Malta to recover. While he was in the hospital, many of his comrades were killed in the Battle of Sari Bair. Later, when he returned to the front, he was informed that his company had been chosen to hold the final lines when Gallipoli was evacuated. He was the second to last man to be evacuated from Suvla Bay (the last being General F.S. Maude).

He later served in the Mesopotamian Campaign in Iraq, where he was badly wounded at El Hannah after being hit in the leg by shrapnel from an exploding shell while taking enemy trenches. He was sent back to England to recover, and spent most of 1917 training soldiers. He was also promoted to the rank of Major. He would be known as "Major Attlee" for much of the inter-war period. He was sent to France in June 1918 to serve on the Western Front for the last months of the war.

The Gallipoli Campaign had been masterminded by Winston Churchill. Attlee believed that it was a bold strategy, which could have been successful if it had been better implemented. This gave him an admiration for Churchill as a military strategist, which improved their working relationship in later years.

His decision to fight in the war caused a rift between him and his older brother Tom Attlee, who, as a pacifist and a conscientious objector, spent much of the war in prison. After the war, he returned to teaching at the London School of Economics 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. It would come to be a devoted marriage, until her death in 1964. They had four children:

• (Lady) Janet Helen (b. 1923); she married Harold Shipton at Ellesborough Parish church in 1947 and later settled in the United States.
• (Lady) Felicity Ann (1925–2007), married John Harwood at Little Hampden in 1955
• Martin Richard (1927–91) and
• (Lady) Alison Elizabeth (b. 1930), married Richard Davis at Great Missenden in 1952.

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.

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:

Charity is a cold grey loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim.

He went on to write:

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. The first way is intolerable, and as for the third: Charity is only possible without loss of dignity between equals. 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.

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.

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. 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.

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.

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. Attlee's unsought service on the Commission equipped him with a thorough exposure to India and many of its political leaders. He was later to decide the future of India as Prime Minister.

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 by Ramsay MacDonald, whom he came to regard as vain and incompetent, and later wrote scathingly of him in his autobiography.

Opposition during the 1930s

Deputy Leader of the Labour Party

After the downfall of the second Labour government, the 1931 General Election was held. The election was a disaster for the Labour Party, which lost over 200 seats. Most of the party's senior figures lost their seats, including Arthur Henderson, the party leader. George Lansbury and Attlee were among the few surviving Labour MPs who had served in government. Accordingly, Lansbury became leader of the party and Attlee became deputy leader.

Attlee served as acting leader for nine months from December 1933, after Lansbury fractured his thigh in an accident. Serving in this capacity raised his public profile. During this period, financial problems again almost forced Attlee to quit politics, as his wife was ill and there was then no separate salary for the Leader of the Opposition. He was persuaded to stay on by Stafford Cripps, a wealthy socialist who agreed to pay him an additional salary.

Leader of the Opposition

George Lansbury, a convinced pacifist, resigned as leader at the 1935 Labour Party conference after the party voted in favour of sanctions against Italy for its aggression against Abyssinia. Lansbury strongly opposed the policy. With a general election looming, the Parliamentary Labour Party then appointed Attlee as interim leader, on the understanding that a leadership election would be held after the general election.

Attlee led Labour through the 1935 general election, which saw the party stage a partial recovery from its disastrous performance in 1931. The party gained over one hundred seats. In the post-election leadership contest held in November 1935, Attlee 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. Arthur Greenwood's leadership bid was hampered by his alcohol problem. Attlee came first in both the first and second ballots, and subsequently retained the leadership, a post which he would keep until 1955.

Throughout the 1920s and most of the 1930s, the Labour Party's official policy, supported by Attlee, was to oppose rearmament and support internationalism and collective security under the League of Nations. At the Labour Party conference at Southport in 1934, 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". During a debate on defence a year later Attlee declared "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".

On 21 May 1935 Hitler gave a speech in which he proclaimed that German rearmament offered no threat to world peace. Attlee responded the next day in the debate on increased air estimates that Hitler's speech contained unfavourable references to the Soviet Union but that "We see here 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".

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 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.

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

In April 1939 Attlee opposed the government's introduction of conscription.

In 1937, Attlee visited Spain and visited the British Battalion of the International Brigades fighting in the Spanish Civil War. 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 opposition leader when war broke out in September 1939. The disastrous Norwegian campaign resulted in a motion of no confidence in the government. Although Chamberlain survived this, the reputation of his administration was so badly damaged that it was clear that a coalition government was necessary. The crisis coincided with the Labour Party Conference. Even if Attlee had been prepared to serve under Chamberlain (in a "national emergency government"), he would not have been able to carry the party with him. Consequently, Chamberlain tendered his resignation, and Labour and the Conservatives entered a coalition government led by Winston Churchill.

In the World War II coalition government, three interconnected committees ran the war. Churchill chaired the War Cabinet and the Defence Committee. Attlee was his regular deputy in these committees, and answered for the government in parliament when Churchill was absent. Attlee chaired the third body, the Lord President's Committee, which ran the civil side of the war. As Churchill was most concerned with executing the war, the arrangement suited both men.

Only he and Churchill remained in the war cabinet from the formation of the Government of National Unity to the 1945 election. Attlee was Lord Privy Seal (1940–42), Deputy Prime Minister (1942–45), Dominions Secretary (1942–43), and Lord President of the Council (1943–45). 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; 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.

1945 general election

Main article: United Kingdom general election, 1945

Following the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Attlee and Churchill wanted the coalition government to last until Japan had been defeated. However, Herbert Morrison argued that the party would not accept this, and the Labour National Executive Committee agreed with him. Churchill responded by resigning as coalition Prime Minister and calling for an immediate election.

The war set in motion profound social changes within Britain and led to a popular desire for social reform. This mood was epitomised in the Beveridge Report. The report assumed that the maintenance of full employment would be the aim of postwar governments, which would provide the basis for the welfare state. Immediately on its release, it sold hundreds of thousands of copies. All major parties were committed to this aim, but perhaps Attlee and Labour were seen by the electorate as the best candidates to follow it through.

Labour campaigned on the theme of "Let Us Face the Future" and positioned themselves as the party best placed to rebuild Britain after the war, while the Conservatives' campaign centred around Churchill. With the hero status of Churchill, few expected a Labour victory. However, Churchill made some errors during the campaign. Among others, his suggestion during a radio broadcast that a Labour government would require "some form of a gestapo" to implement their socialist policies was widely seen as being in bad taste, and backfired.

The results of the election came as a surprise to many, including Attlee, when they were announced on 26 July. Labour had swept to power in a landslide, winning just under 50% of the vote, to the Conservatives' 36%. Labour won 393 seats, giving them a majority of 146 seats. It was said that when Attlee visited King George VI at Buckingham Palace to kiss hands, the notoriously laconic Attlee and the notoriously tongue-tied George VI stood for some minutes in silence before Attlee finally volunteered the remark "I've won the election." The King replied "I know. I heard it on the Six O'Clock News."

Prime Minister

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

As Prime Minister, Attlee appointed Ernest Bevin as Foreign Secretary and Hugh Dalton was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer (although it had widely been expected to be the other way around). Stafford Cripps became President of the Board of Trade, Herbert Morrison was given the post of Deputy Prime Minister and given overall control of Labour's nationalisation programme, Aneurin Bevan became Minister of Health, and Ellen Wilkinson, the only woman to serve in Attlee's government, became Minister of Education.

Attlee's government proved itself to be a radical reforming administration. In the 1945–46 session alone, pensions and other benefits were substantially increased, and 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.

Domestic policy

Health and Welfare reforms

In domestic policy, the party had clear aims. Attlee's first Health Secretary, Aneurin Bevan, fought against the general disapproval of the medical establishment by creating the British National Health Service, a publicly funded healthcare system offering treatment free at the point of use. Reflecting pent-up demand that had long existed for medical services, the NHS treated some 8.5 million dental patients and dispensed more than 5 million pairs of spectacles during its first year of operation. Consultants also 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. The NHS brought major improvements in the health of working-class people, with deaths from diphtheria, pneumonia, and TB significantly reduced. Although there are often disputes about its organisation and funding, British parties to this day must still voice their general support for the NHS in order to remain electable.

In the field of healthcare, funds were allocated towards 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." In addition, BCG vaccinations were introduced for the protection of medical students, midwives, nurses, and contacts of patients with TB, while a pension scheme was set up for employees of the newly-established NHS. 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. During the period 1948-51, the Attlee Government increased spending on health from £6 billion to £11 billion, an increase of over 50%, and from 2.1% to 3.6% of GDP.

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. 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. 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. In 1949, local authorities were empowered to provide people suffering from poor health with public housing at subsidised rents. That same year, unemployment, sickness and maternity benefits were exempted from tax.

Development rights were also 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.

A block grant introduced in 1948 helped the social services provided by local authorities. 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. The Attlee Government also significantly increased pensions and other benefits, with pensions raised to become more of a living income than they had been.

A large house-building programme was carried out with the intention of providing millions of people with high-quality homes. A housing bill passed in 1946 increased Treasury subsidies for the construction of local authority housing in England and Wales. 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 and 1951 (a significant achievement under the circumstances) which ensured that decent, affordable housing was available to many low-income families for the first time ever.

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. The success of the Attlee Government's welfare legislation in reducing poverty was such that, in the general election of 1950, according to Kevin Jefferys, "Labour propaganda could make much of the claim that social security had eradicated the most abject destitution of the 1930s".

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. 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. Conservatives would later criticise Labour for having been "too hasty" in introducing family allowances.

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. 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. 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.

In 1946, the government set up a National Institute of Houseworkers as a means of providing a social democratic variety of domestic service. The institute aimed to promote domestic service as a skilled craft, by means of training and by examination of those who already had the necessary qualifications. By the autumn of 1946, agreed standards of training were established, which was followed by the opening of a training headquarters and the opening of an additional 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.

Workers

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. Worker’s compensation was also significantly improved. 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. In 1946, purchase tax was removed completely from kitchen fittings and crockery, while the rate was reduced on various gardening items.

The Fire Services Act 1947 introduced a new pension scheme for firefighters, while the Electricity Act 1947 introduced better retirement benefits for workers in that industry. A Workers’ Compensation (Supplementation) Act was passed in 1948 that introduced benefits for workers with certain asbestos-related diseases which had occurred before 1948. 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 11:30am and 2:30 pm and a half hour tea break for anyone working between 4pm and 7pm. 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.

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. 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.

Wages for members of the police force were significantly increased. The introduction of a Miner’s Charter in 1946 instituted a five-day work week for miners and a standardised day wage structure, and in 1948 a Colliery Workers Supplementary Scheme was approved, providing supplementary allowances to disabled coal-workers and their dependants. In 1948, a pension scheme was set up to provide pension benefits for employees of the new NHS, as well as their dependents. Under the Coal Industry Nationalisation (Superannuation) Regulations of 1950, a pension scheme for mineworkers was established.

Nationalisation

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.

In spite of the hopes of many on the left, 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, and improvements in working conditions, especially in regards to safety. 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. 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 workweek, 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. 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.”

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 and 1951, 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. Legislation was also passed in 1947 and 1948 which established a permanent Agricultural Wages Board to fix minimum wages for agricultural workers. The Attlee Government also 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.

At a time of world food shortages, it was vital that farmers produced the maximum amount possible. 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.

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. The school leaving age was raised to 15 in 1947, an accomplishment helped brought into fruition by 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. Increased Treasury funds were made available for education, particularly for upgrading school buildings suffering from years of neglect and war damage. Prefabricated classrooms were also built and 928 new primary schools were constructed between 1945 and 1950. The provision of free school meals was expanded, and opportunities for universal entrants were increased. State scholarships to universities were increased, and the government adopted a policy of supplementing university scholarships awards to a level sufficient to cover fees plus maintenance. Free milk was also made available to all schoolchildren for the first time. In addition, spending on technical education also rose, and the number of nursery schools was increased. Salaries for teachers were also improved, and funds were allocated towards improving existing schools.

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. An Emergency Training Scheme was also introduced which turned out an extra 25,000 teachers in 1945–51. Despite these achievements, Attlee's government failed to introduce the comprehensive education for which many socialists had hoped (as a means of making the educational system less meritoric). 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.

The 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 its 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 dollar. When this was introduced in July 1947, it led to a currency crisis and convertibility had to be suspended after just five weeks. Britain also 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.

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. Labour shortages proved to be a more frequent problem. The inflation rate was also kept low during his term. 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.

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.

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 United Kingdom had "the best economic performance in Europe, while output per person was increasing faster than in the United States." 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. In addition, the number of motor cars on the roads rose from 3 million to 5 million from 1945 to 1951, and seaside holidays were taken by far more people than ever before.

1947 crisis

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, became a scapegoat for the crisis and 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).

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. Later that year, Hugh Dalton resigned as Chancellor after inadvertently leaking details of the budget to a journalist. He was replaced by Cripps.

Relations with the press and Royal family

Attlee's government faced constant hostility from Conservative sections of society, including the Conservative press. Sunday Times journalist James Margach, wrote of the Attlee years: "I have never known the Press so consistently and irresponsibly political, slanted and prejudiced". As early as 1946 the Attorney-General Sir Hartley Shawcross attacked "the campaign of calumny and misrepresentation which the Tory Party and the Tory stooge press has directed at the Labour government. Freedom of the press does not mean freedom to tell lies". In 1946 the government set up a Royal Commission on the press which eventually led to the Press Council in 1953.

Relations with the Royal Family were also strained. A letter from Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother), dated 17 May 1947, showed "her decided lack of enthusiasm for the socialist government" and describes the British electorate as "poor people, so many half-educated and bemused" for electing Attlee over Winston Churchill, whom she saw as a war hero. That said, according to Lord Wyatt, this was to be expected as the Queen Mother was "the most right-wing member of the Royal Family."

Foreign policy

Clement Attlee (left) with President Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin at the 1945 Potsdam Conference.

Postwar Europe and the Cold War

In foreign affairs, Attlee's cabinet was concerned with four issues: postwar 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 Ernest Bevin. Attlee also attended the later stages of the Potsdam Conference in the company of Harry S. Truman and 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. Attlee's Foreign Secretary, the former trade union leader Ernest Bevin, was passionately 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 has been described by historian Kenneth O. Morgan as "wary and suspicious, but not automatically hostile".

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.

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. 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 left wing 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 'third force' of European powers to stand between the USA and USSR. However, deteriorating relations between Britain and the USSR and Britain's economic reliance on America steered policy towards supporting America. In January, 1947, fear of Soviet and American intentions led to a secret meeting of senior cabinet ministers, where it was decided to press ahead with the development of Britain's independent nuclear deterrent, an issue which later caused a split in the Labour Party. (The first successful test did not occur until 1952, after Attlee had left office.)

In 1950 American president Harry S. Truman said that atomic weapons may be used in the Korean War. Attlee became concerned with the power America possessed and therefore called a meeting of some foreign affairs ministers.

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

Decolonisation

Attlee's government was responsible for the first significant decolonisation of part of the British Empire – India. Attlee appointed Lord Louis Mountbatten Viceroy of India, 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.

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 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 UN was widely supported by the public.

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).

Demise of Attlee's government

Following the general election of 1950, the Labour party experienced a greatly reduced parliamentary majority, a mere five seats compared to the triple-digit majority of five years previous, despite an increase in the popular vote (possible because of the first-past-the-post voting system). This was largely blamed on post-war austerity denting Labour's appeal to wealthier voters who felt they would be more prosperous under a Conservative government. It was at this time that a degree of Conservative opposition recovered at the expense of the declining Liberal Party. Although Attlee's second government was less radical than the first, it oversaw the passage of a number of reforms relating to issues such as industry in development areas, the restoration of land which had been devastated by ironstone pollution, and river pollution.

By 1951, the Attlee government was looking increasingly exhausted, with several of its most important ministers ailing or having died. Attlee himself was hospitalised with duodenal ulcers. The party split in 1951 over the austerity budget brought in by Hugh Gaitskell to pay for the cost of Britain's participation in the Korean War. Aneurin Bevan, the architect of the National Health Service (NHS), resigned to protest against the new charges for "teeth and spectacles" introduced by the budget. He was joined in this action by the later prime minister, Harold Wilson.

Labour lost the general election of 1951 to Churchill's renewed Conservatives, despite polling more votes than in the 1945 election and more votes nationwide than the Conservative party. Attlee's short list of Resignation Honours announced in November 1951 included an Earldom for William Jowitt, Lord Chancellor.

Having served as prime minister for six years and 92 days, his reign as prime minister was the longest unbroken reign of any Labour leader until Tony Blair more than 50 years later. (Harold Wilson did manage a total of almost eight year as prime minister, but it was across two different spells between 1964 and 1976.)

Return to opposition and retirement

Following the defeat in 1951, Attlee continued to lead the party in opposition. His last four years as leader are widely seen as one of the Labour Party's weaker periods. The party split between its right wing, led by Hugh Gaitskell, and its left, led by Aneurin Bevan. Many Labour MPs felt 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. One of his main reasons for staying on as leader was to frustrate the leadership ambitions of Herbert Morrison, whom Attlee disliked for political and personal reasons. (Ernest Bevin had died shortly before Labour lost office.) At one time, Attlee had favoured Aneurin Bevan to succeed him as leader, but this became problematic after Bevan split the party.

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."

At 72 years of age, Attlee contested the 1955 general election against Anthony Eden, which saw the Conservative majority increase from seventeen to sixty. He retired as leader of the party on 14 December 1955, having led Labour for twenty years, and was succeeded by Hugh Gaitskell.

Coat of arms of the Earls Attlee

He 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. 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. He 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. He died of pneumonia at the age of 84 at Westminster Hospital on 8 October 1967.

On 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.

When Attlee died, his 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.

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). 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. Indeed he is widely praised by his successors, both Labour and Conservative.

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." Even 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.

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." However, the first operational British A Bomb was not detonated until October 1952, about one year after Attlee had left office.

Though 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 began 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.

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. By then Wilson was the last surviving member of Attlee's cabinet 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 after a decade of ill health. In April 2011, Limehouse Library having closed in 2003, the Attlee statue was unveiled in its new home at Queen Mary University of London. Attlee was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of Queen Mary College on 15 December 1948. A blue plaque unveiled in 1979 commemorates Attlee at 17 Monkhams Avenue, in Woodford Green in the London borough of Redbridge.

Public image

In 1956 he was painted by the famous Scottish portrait artist, Cowan Dobson, who also later painted Harold Wilson.

Although possessed of a genial personality, Clement Attlee was notably taciturn in his relations with the press, sometimes offering only monosyllabic answers to reporters' questions. He was seldom referred to by his forename; usually he was referred to as "C. R. Attlee" or "Mr. Attlee".

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".

Appearance in popular culture

Literature

Attlee composed this limerick about himself to demonstrate how he was often underestimated:

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:

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.

Music

• Lord Beginner's song "General Election" was inspired by Attlee's victory in the 1950 British general election.

Sport

• In 1981, Attlee again entered British popular culture as one of the famous English people taunted by name in Bjørge Lillelien's legendary commentary immediately after Norway defeated England in a FIFA World Cup qualifier.

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).

Major legislation enacted by the Attlee Government

• Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945
• 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

Attlee's cabinet 1945–50

• Clement Attlee: Prime Minister and Minister of Defence
• Lord Jowitt: Lord Chancellor
• Herbert Morrison: Deputy Prime Minister, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
• Arthur Greenwood: Lord Privy Seal
• Hugh Dalton: Chancellor of the Exchequer
• Ernest Bevin: Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
• James Chuter Ede: Secretary of State for the Home Department
• George Henry Hall: Secretary of State for the Colonies
• Lord Addison: Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs and Leader of the House of Lords
• Lord Pethick-Lawrence: Secretary of State for India and Burma
• A. V. Alexander: First Lord of the Admiralty
• Jack Lawson: Secretary of State for War
• William Wedgwood Benn, Lord Stansgate: Secretary of State for Air
• Ellen Wilkinson: Minister of Education
• Joseph Westwood: Secretary of State for Scotland
• Tom Williams: Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries
• George Isaacs: Minister of Labour and National Service
• Aneurin Bevan: Minister of Health
• Sir Stafford Cripps: President of the Board of Trade
• Emanuel Shinwell: Minister of Fuel and Power

Changes

• July 1946 – Arthur Greenwood became Paymaster-General as well as Lord Privy Seal.
• October 1946 – The three service ministers (Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air, and First Lord of the Admiralty) ceased to be cabinet positions. A. V. Alexander remained in the cabinet as Minister without Portfolio. George Hall replaced A. V. Alexander as First Lord of the Admiralty, outside the cabinet. Arthur Creech Jones succeeded Hall as Secretary of State for the Colonies.
• December 1946 – A. V. Alexander succeeded Attlee as Minister of Defence.
• February 1947 – George Tomlinson succeeded Ellen Wilkinson as Minister of Education upon her death.
• March 1947 – Arthur Greenwood ceased to be Paymaster-General, remaining Lord Privy Seal. His successor as Paymaster-General was not in the cabinet.
• April 1947 – Arthur Greenwood became Minister without Portfolio. Lord Inman succeeded Arthur Greenwood as Lord Privy Seal. William Francis Hare, Lord Listowel succeeded Lord Pethick-Lawrence as Secretary of State for India and Burma.
• July 1947 – The Dominion Affairs Office became the Office of Commonwealth Relations. Addison remained at the head.
• August 1947 – The India and Burma Office became the Burma office with India's independence. Lord Listowel remains in office.
• September 1947 – Sir Stafford Cripps became Minister of Economic Affairs. Harold Wilson succeeded Cripps as President of the Board of Trade. Arthur Greenwood retired from the Front Bench.
• October 1947 – Lord Addison succeeded Lord Inman as Lord Privy Seal, remaining also Leader of the House of Lords. Philip Noel-Baker succeeded Lord Addison as Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations. Arthur Woodburn succeeded Joseph Westwood as Secretary of State for Scotland. The Minister of Fuel and Power, Emanuel Shinwell, left the Cabinet.
• November 1947 – Sir Stafford Cripps succeeded Hugh Dalton as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
• January 1948 – The Burma Office was abolished with Burma's independence.
• May 1948: Hugh Dalton re-entered the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Lord Pakenham entered the Cabinet as Minister of Civil Aviation.
• July 1948: Lord Addison became Paymaster-General.
• April 1949: Lord Addison ceased to be Paymaster-General, remaining Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords. His successor as Paymaster-General was not in the Cabinet.

Attlee's cabinet 1950–51

In February 1950, a substantial reshuffle took place following the General Election:

• Clement Attlee: Prime Minister
• Lord Jowitt: Lord Chancellor
• Herbert Morrison: Deputy Prime Minister, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
• Lord Addison: Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords
• Sir Stafford Cripps: Chancellor of the Exchequer
• Ernest Bevin: Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
• James Chuter Ede: Secretary of State for the Home Department
• Jim Griffiths: Secretary of State for the Colonies
• Patrick Gordon Walker: Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations
• Harold Wilson: President of the Board of Trade
• Lord Alexander of Hillsborough: Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
• George Tomlinson: Minister of Education
• Hector McNeil: Secretary of State for Scotland
• Tom Williams: Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries
• George Isaacs: Minister of Labour and National Service
• Aneurin Bevan: Minister of Health
• Emanuel Shinwell: Minister of Defence
• Hugh Dalton: Minister of Town and Country Planning

Changes

• October 1950: Hugh Gaitskell succeeded Sir Stafford Cripps as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
• January 1951: Aneurin Bevan succeeded George Isaacs as Minister of Labour and National Service. Bevan's successor as Minister of Health is not in the cabinet. Hugh Dalton's post is renamed Minister of Local Government and Planning.
• March 1951: Herbert Morrison succeeded Ernest Bevin as Foreign Secretary. Lord Addison succeeded Morrison as Lord President. Bevin succeeded Addison as Lord Privy Seal. James Chuter Ede succeeded Morrison as Leader of the House of Commons whilst remaining Home Secretary.
• April 1951: Richard Stokes succeeded Ernest Bevin as Lord Privy Seal. Alf Robens succeeded Aneurin Bevan (resigned) as Minister of Labour and National Service. Sir Hartley Shawcross succeeded Harold Wilson (resigned) as President of the Board of Trade.

References

• Hennessy, Peter (2006). Never Again: Britain 1945–51 (2 ed.). London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-101602-7.

Further reading

• 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);
• 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).

Biographies

• Roy Jenkins, Mr Attlee (1948)
• Kenneth Harris, Attlee (1982)
• Trevor Burridge, Clement Attlee: A Political Biography, (1985)
• Francis Beckett, Clem Attlee (1997)
• David Howell, Attlee (2006)
• Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds, Attlee: A Life in Politics (2010)

Biographies of Attlee and of his Cabinet

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

Accounts of the period include

• Kenneth O. Morgan, Labour in Power 1945–51, Oxford University Press, 1984;
• Greg Rosen, Old Labour to New, Politicos Publishing, 2005.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Clement Attlee
• More about Clement Attlee on the Downing Street website.
• Clement Attlee at Find-A-Grave
• "Archival material relating to Clement Attlee". 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
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