Ernest Bevin

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Ernest Bevin bigraphy, stories - British labour leader, politician, and statesman

Ernest Bevin : biography

9 March 1881 – 14 April 1951

Ernest Bevin (9 March 1881 – 14 April 1951) was a British statesman, trade union leader, and Labour politician. He co-founded and served as general secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers’ Union from 1922 to 1940, and as Minister of Labour in the war-time coalition government. He succeeded in maximizing the British labour supply for both the services and domestic industry, with a minimum of strikes and disruption. His most important role came as Foreign Secretary in the post-war Labour Government, 1945-51. He gained American financial support, withdrew from India and much of the Middle East, strongly opposed Communism, and aided in the creation of NATO.

His biographer says, "he stands as the last of the line of foreign secretaries in the tradition created by Casterleagh, Canning and Palmerston in the first half of the 19th century, with Salisbury, Grey and Austin Chamberlain as his predecessor in the 20th century and (thanks to the reduction in British power) with no successors." Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary 1945-1951 (1983) p75

Early life

Bevin was born in the village of Winsford in Somerset, England, to Diana Bevin who, since 1877, had described herself as a widow. His father is unknown. After his mother’s death in 1889, the young Bevin lived with his half-sister’s family, moving to Morchard Bishop in Devon. He had little formal education, having briefly attended two village schools and then Hayward’s School, Crediton, starting in 1890 and leaving in 1892.” – Roger Steer. Devon Life Magazine, July 2002. He later recalled being asked as a child to read the newspaper aloud for the benefit of adults in his family who were illiterate. At the age of eleven, he went to work as a labourer, then as a lorry driver in Bristol, where he joined the Bristol Socialist Society. In 1910 he became secretary of the Bristol branch of the Dockers’ Union, and in 1914 he became a national organiser for the union.

Bevin was a physically huge man, strong and by the time of his political prominence very heavy. He spoke with a strong West Country accent, so much so that on one occasion listeners at Cabinet had difficulty in deciding whether he was talking about "Hugh and Nye (Gaitskell and Bevan)" or "you and I". He had developed his oratorical skills from his time as a Baptist laypreacher, which he had given up as a profession to become a full-time labour activist.

Bevin was married and had a daughter.

Transport and General Workers Union

In 1922 Bevin was one of the founding leaders of the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), which soon became Britain’s largest trade union. Upon his election as the union’s general secretary, he became one of country’s leading labour leaders, and their strongest advocate within the Labour Party. Politically, he was on the right-wing of the Labour Party, strongly opposed to communism and direct action – allegedly partly due to anti-Semitic paranoia and seeing communism as a ‘Jewish plot’ against Britain.Peter Weiler, Ernest Bevin (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), 170-171 He took part in the British General Strike in 1926, but without enthusiasm.

Bevin had no great faith in parliamentary politics, but had nevertheless been a member of the Labour Party from the time of its formation. He had poor relations with the first Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, and was not surprised when MacDonald formed a National Government with the Conservatives during the economic crisis of 1931, for which MacDonald was expelled from the Labour Party. Bevin was a pragmatic trade unionist who believed in getting material benefits for his members through direct negotiations, with strike action to be used as a last resort. During the late Thirties, for instance, Bevin helped to instigate a successful campaign by the TUC to extend paid holidays to a wider proportion of the workforce.Ernest Bevin by Peter Weiler This culminated in the Holidays with Pay Act of 1938, which extended entitlement to paid holidays to about 11 million workers by June 1939.A Social History of the English Working Classes 1815-1945 by Eric Hopkins