Attlee, Clement, 1st Earl Attlee

Attlee, Clement, 1st Earl Attlee (1883–1967). Prime minister. The son of a solicitor, Attlee grew up in a comfortably middle-class environment. He was educated at Haileybury and University College, Oxford, where he read history. Called to the bar in 1905, he forsook the law for a career in social work after viewing poverty at first hand in London's East End. Meanwhile Attlee became committed to socialism, joining the Fabians in 1907 and the Independent Labour Party in 1908. He volunteered for military service in the First World War, fighting with distinction in Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and France. In later years he retained the title of ‘Major’, clearly setting himself apart from the strong anti-militarist strain within the Labour movement.

With the war over Attlee became mayor of Stepney and was elected to Parliament as member for Limehouse in 1922. He immediately became parliamentary private secretary to Ramsay MacDonald and was appointed under-secretary at the War Office in the short-lived Labour government of 1924. Attlee broadened his experience when serving under Sir John Simon on the Statutory Commission on India after 1927. There he revealed those qualities of moderation, diligence, and attention to detail which were to characterize his political life. He became chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster in November 1930, but was soon promoted to be postmaster-general. When this second Labour government collapsed in the summer of 1931, Attlee refused to follow MacDonald when the latter re-emerged as prime minister of an all-party National Government.

Ironically, Labour's catastrophic performance in the general election of that year worked to Attlee's advantage. So depleted was the party's front bench that Attlee faced no opposition when the pacifist George Lansbury was forced out of the leadership in 1935. Even so, it was widely expected that Attlee would be only a stop-gap leader pending the return of some of the party's senior figures to the House of Commons. After the general election of 1935, however, he successfully retained his position in a contest with Herbert Morrison and Arthur Greenwood. Few imagined that he would hold on to the leadership—without serious challenge—for the next 20 years.

For many Labour activists Attlee's greatest virtue lay in the fact that he was unlikely to follow MacDonald in abusing the office of party leader. Yet it was always easy to underestimate his qualities. He was no orator. Even his private conversation was clipped and uninformative. But Attlee emerged as a consummate politician and expert party manager, capable of controlling difficult and wilful colleagues. During the 1930s he played his part in curbing the excesses of Labour's left and re-establishing Labour as a viable party of government. Attlee was ill at the outbreak of war in September 1939, but in May 1940, following the debate on the ill-fated Norwegian campaign, he made it clear that Labour would not serve in a government headed by Neville Chamberlain.

Under Winston Churchill Attlee served successively as lord privy seal, dominions secretary, and lord president. From 1942 he was also designated deputy prime minister and was the most powerful figure on the home front. This certainly gave him more opportunity than Churchill enjoyed—or perhaps desired—to think about the challenges of the post-war world. With the resumption of party politics in the general election of 1945 Attlee was the beneficiary of the mood of popular radicalism which had swept through the electorate during the war years. He emerged as the head of the first majority Labour government in British history.

As prime minister 1945–51 Attlee helped shape the development of British politics, in both the domestic and foreign arenas, for the next quarter-century. The administration presided over a substantial extension of the public ownership of British industry, the development of the welfare state including the creation of the National Health Service, and the establishment of Britain's position within the western alliance. Attlee headed a talented, if not always harmonious, group of senior ministers, which included Ernest Bevin, Hugh Dalton, and Herbert Morrison. The overall coherence of the government was testimony to his qualities. Despite considerable difficulties, Labour sustained its public support and never lost a by-election throughout the Parliament.

Though Labour was again victorious in the general election of 1950, its massive majority of 1945 was all but wiped out. Party unity came under severe strain, while the outbreak of the Korean War imposed new difficulties. The government struggled on but its creative energy was largely exhausted. Conservative tactics in the House of Commons made the business of government difficult and Attlee went to the country again in October 1951. Labour was narrowly defeated and the moment was perhaps opportune for Attlee to resign the leadership. Mounting problems within the party, the emergence of a clear left–right split, and the absence of an obvious successor convinced him that he should carry on. But as leader of the opposition Attlee engaged in little more than an exercise in damage limitation, failing to define a new role for the Labour movement. After a further electoral defeat in 1955, Attlee resigned and went to the House of Lords with an earldom.

A modest man by nature, Attlee came to enjoy great respect from the majority of those who worked under him and the electorate at large. Though the ideas of central planning, state intervention, and welfarism, which dominated his government, have been less in vogue over the last two decades, his historical reputation remains high. Attlee's standing as one of the most successful of peacetime prime ministers of the 20th cent. seems beyond challenge.

David Dutton

Bibliography

Harris, K. , Attlee (1985);
Pearce, R. D. , Attlee (1997).