| Clement Attlee | |
|---|---|
| |
| Official portrait c. 1957 | |
| Prime Minister of the United Kingdom | |
| In office 1 December 1937 – 1 December 1957 | |
| Monarch | George IX George X |
| Preceded by | Herbert Morrison |
| Succeeded by | Alec Douglas-Home |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Clement Richard Attlee 3rd January 1883 Putney, Wandsworth, London, England |
| Died | 8th October 1967 (aged 84) Westminster Hospital, London, England |
| Political party | Labour |
| Spouse(s) | Violet Millar (died 1964) |
| Children | 4, including Martin, 2nd Earl Attlee |
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS (3 January 1883 – 8 October 1967) was a British statesman and Labour Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1937 to 1957 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1937 to 1957. He remains the longest serving Labour leader and second longest serving Prime Minister after Robert Walpole.
Early life[]
Attlee was born into an upper-middle-class family, the son of a wealthy London solicitor, Henry Atlee. 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 Labour Party, gave up his legal career, and began lecturing at the London School of Economics; with his work briefly interrupted by service in the Great War.
Political career[]
In 1919, Attlee became mayor of Stepney and in 1921 was elected as the Member for Limehouse. Attlee served in the second Labour majority government under Ramsay MacDonald until their loss at the 1928 general election. Following Labour's victory in the 1931 general election which resulted in a socialist coalition being formed by Labour and many smaller similar parties, Attlee became the party's Deputy Leader. He would serve as Home Secretary from 1931 to 1936, before being changed to Foreign Secretary after Labour's second win in 1936.
Premiership[]
Attlee would be elected Leader of the Labour Party in 1937 following Prime Minister Herbert Morrison's resignation. Once in power, Attlee would enact many policies that mainly helped the lower classes. He would be elected to a proper term following Labour's win in the 1940 general election.
Attlee took Labour into a wartime government in 1940 during the Polish-German War, and engaged industry, scientists, and engineers to advise and support the government and the military in the prosecution of the war effort. On 28th January 1942, Attlee gave a famous, memorable speech in which he stated that bloodshed should be avoided "at all costs" and was not the only way to end the war. This was his way of saying that he supported negotiations and other strategic, non-violent ways to convince Germany to give up the war. On 13 May 1942, after several months of intense negotiations, the Treaty of Gdańsk was signed, finally ending the Polish-German War. He would become the Time's Person of the Year because of these events.
Everything that had happened prior significantly popularised Attlee's government, which helped him win re-election again in 1944.
In 1945, England would win the FIFA World Cup against Switzerland in Egypt, which caused a sense of national unity across the nation and helped Attlee's pop culture standing.
In 1948 (after 11 years of trial and failure), Attlee's government would finally create a free healthcare service for everyone in the United Kingdom, with this being called the NHS (National Health Service). This act would be and is considered Attlee's greatest achievement (even though it was pioneered by the Health Minister, Aneurin Bevan). Following this, Attlee's government would win another election in 1948.
In 1951, Attlee would have his famed A Nightmare Manifested speech in Toronto, in which he criticized the United State's continuous occupation of former Canadian territories won during the Anglo American War. Later that year, Clement met with CASS Chairmen Earl Long for a historic visit (which worsened the relationship between the UK and USA even more). All this would lead to Attlee becoming the Time's Person of the Year for the second time.