Clement Attlee

The Earl Attlee
portrait photograph of Clement Attlee, aged around 62
Attlee c. 1945
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In office
26 July 1945 – 26 October 1951
MonarchGeorge VI
DeputyHerbert Morrison
Preceded byWinston Churchill
Succeeded byWinston Churchill
Leader of the Opposition
In office
26 October 1951 – 25 November 1955
Monarchs
Prime Minister
Preceded byWinston Churchill
Succeeded byHerbert Morrison
In office
23 May 1945 – 26 July 1945
MonarchGeorge VI
Prime MinisterWinston Churchill
Preceded byArthur Greenwood
Succeeded byWinston Churchill
In office
25 October 1935 – 11 May 1940
Monarchs
Prime Minister
Preceded byGeorge Lansbury
Succeeded byHastings Lees-Smith
Leader of the Labour Party
In office
25 October 1935 – 7 December 1955
Deputy
  • Arthur Greenwood
  • Herbert Morrison
Preceded byGeorge Lansbury
Succeeded byHugh Gaitskell
Deputy Leader of the Labour Party
In office
25 October 1932 – 25 October 1935
LeaderGeorge Lansbury
Preceded byJ. R. Clynes
Succeeded byArthur Greenwood
Wartime ministerial offices
Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
De facto
19 February 1942 – 23 May 1945
Prime MinisterWinston Churchill
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byHerbert Morrison (de facto)
Lord President of the Council
In office
28 September 1943 – 23 May 1945
Prime MinisterWinston Churchill
Preceded bySir John Anderson
Succeeded byThe Lord Woolton
Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs
In office
15 February 1942 – 24 September 1943
Prime MinisterWinston Churchill
Preceded byViscount Cranborne
Succeeded byViscount Cranborne
Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal
In office
12 May 1940 – 15 February 1942
Prime MinisterWinston Churchill
Preceded byKingsley Wood
Succeeded byStafford Cripps
Interwar ministerial offices
Postmaster General
In office
13 March 1931 – 25 August 1931
Prime MinisterRamsay MacDonald
Preceded byHastings Lees-Smith
Succeeded byWilliam Ormsby-Gore
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
In office
23 May 1930 – 13 March 1931
Prime MinisterRamsay MacDonald
Preceded byOswald Mosley
Succeeded byThe Lord Ponsonby
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for War
In office
23 January 1924 – 4 November 1924
Prime MinisterRamsay MacDonald
Preceded byWilfrid Ashley
Succeeded byRichard Onslow
Parliamentary offices
Member of the House of Lords
Hereditary peerage
25 January 1956 – 8 October 1967
Preceded byEarldom created
Succeeded byThe 2nd Earl Attlee
Member of Parliament
for Walthamstow West
In office
23 February 1950 – 16 December 1955
Preceded byValentine McEntee
Succeeded byEdward Redhead
Member of Parliament
for Limehouse
In office
15 November 1922 – 3 February 1950
Preceded byWilliam Pearce
Succeeded byConstituency abolished
Personal details
Born
Clement Richard Attlee

(1883-01-03)3 January 1883
Putney, England
Died8 October 1967(1967-10-08) (aged 84)
Westminster, London, England
Resting placeWestminster Abbey
Political partyLabour
Spouse
(m. 1922; died 1964)
Children4, including Martin, 2nd Earl Attlee
EducationUniversity College, Oxford
Occupation
  • Politician
  • Barrister
  • Lecturer
  • Social worker
  • Soldier
Signature
Military service
Branch/service
Years of service1914–1931
RankMajor
Unit
Battles/wars
Awards

Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee (3 January 1883 – 8 October 1967) was a British statesman who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. Attlee was Deputy Prime Minister during the wartime coalition government under Winston Churchill, and Leader of the Opposition on three occasions: from 1935 to 1940, briefly in 1945 and from 1951 to 1955. He remains the longest serving Labour leader.

Attlee was born into an upper-middle-class family, the son of a wealthy London solicitor. After attending Haileybury College and the University of Oxford, he practised as a barrister. The volunteer work he carried out in London's East End exposed him to poverty, and his political views shifted leftwards thereafter. He joined the Independent Labour Party, gave up his legal career, and began lecturing at the London School of Economics; with his work briefly interrupted by service as an officer in the First World War. In 1919, he became mayor of Stepney and in 1922 was elected as the Member for Limehouse. Attlee served in the first Labour minority government led by Ramsay MacDonald in 1924, and then joined the Cabinet during MacDonald's second minority (1929–1931). After retaining his seat in Labour's landslide defeat of 1931, he became the party's Deputy Leader. Elected Leader of the Labour Party in 1935, and at first advocating pacificism and opposing re-armament, he became a critic of Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement in the lead-up to the Second World War. Attlee took Labour into the wartime coalition government in 1940 and served under Winston Churchill, initially as Lord Privy Seal and then as Deputy Prime Minister from 1942.[note 1]

The Labour Party, led by Attlee, won a landslide victory in the 1945 general election, on their post-war recovery platform.[note 2] They inherited a country close to bankruptcy following the Second World War and beset by food, housing and resource shortages. Attlee led the construction of the first Labour majority government, which aimed to maintain full employment, a mixed economy and a greatly enlarged system of social services provided by the state. To this end, it undertook the nationalisation of public utilities and major industries, and implemented wide-ranging social reforms, including the passing of the National Insurance Act 1946 and National Assistance Act 1948, the formation of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948, and the enlargement of public subsidies for council house building. His government also reformed trade union legislation, working practices and children's services; it created the National Parks system, passed the New Towns Act 1946 and established the town and country planning system. Attlee's foreign policy focused on decolonisation efforts, including the partition of India (1947), the independence of Burma and Ceylon, and the dissolution of the British mandates of Palestine and Transjordan. Attlee and Bevin encouraged the United States to take a vigorous role in the Cold War. He supported the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe with American money and, in 1949, promoted the NATO military alliance against the Soviet bloc. After leading Labour to a narrow victory at the 1950 general election, he sent British troops to fight alongside South Korea in the Korean War.[note 3]

Despite his social reforms and economic programme food, housing and resource shortages persisted throughout his premiership, alongside recurrent currency crises and dependence on US aid. His party was narrowly defeated by the Conservatives in the 1951 general election, despite winning the most votes. He continued as Labour leader but retired after losing the 1955 general election and was elevated to the House of Lords, where he served until his death in 1967. In public, he was modest and unassuming, but behind the scenes his depth of knowledge, quiet demeanour, objectivity and pragmatism proved decisive.[1] He is often ranked as one of the greatest British prime ministers, receiving particular praise for his government's welfare state reforms, creation of the NHS, continuation of the "Special Relationship" with the US, and involvement in NATO.[2]


Cite error: There are <ref group=note> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=note}} template (see the help page).

  1. ^ Kenneth Harris, Attlee (1982). pp.566–569; Robert Pearce, Attlee (1967) pp1-5, 189–190; John Bew, Clement Attlee (2017), pp. 546–553.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference ipsos was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

Clement Attlee

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