In 1957, Bevan, Richard Crossman and the Labour Party's General Secretary Morgan Phillips sued The Spectator magazine for libel, after one of its writers described them as drinking heavily during an Italian Socialist Party conference. His work in the mines paid off as he gained sponsorship from the South Wales Miners Federation to study at Central Labour College in 1919. In the speeches section, we will be building an archive of Bevans greatest oratory including archive recordings. He had then joined the board of the socialist newspaper, the Tribune in 1936. The Gaitskellites typically won most of the battles inside Parliament, but Bevanism was stronger among local Labour activists. The Labour conference voted to drop its opposition to rearmament. [45][by whom? Along that road is endless retreat, and at the end of it a voluntary totalitarian State with ourselves erecting the barbed wire around. With his posture, the manager of the colliery found reasons to lay him off but with support from the Miners Federation, he was re-employed by the company as his case was seen as victimization. Perhaps the greatest and certainly one of the most controversial of Labour Party politicians, Bevan was born in Tredegar, a miner's son in a dissenting family. One of ten children (though four died in infancy and one at eight years old), Bevans father was a coal miner and Baptist, while his mother a seamstress and follower of Methodism. In 1928, Bevan won a seat on Monmouthshire County Council and was elected as the MP for Ebbw Vale the following year. Bevan was largely responsible for the distribution of strike pay in Tredegar and the formation of the Council of Action, an organisation that helped to raise money and provide food for the miners. Confrontation with the British Medical Association (BMA) was led by Charles Hill, who published a letter in the British Medical Journal describing Bevan as "a complete and uncontrolled dictator". At an early age of only 19 years, he became a trade union activist and headed the local miners lodge after joining the Tredegar branch of the South Wales Miner Federation. His opposition to the Labour leadership's approach was partly based on his view that the leadership of the Labour Party was not demanding assurances from the Government on its foreign policy as a price for the party's support for re-armament as expressed in his speech to the Bournemouth Conference of that year: we should say to the country we are prepared to make whatever sacrifices are necessary, to give whatever arms are necessary to fight Fascist powers and in order to consolidate world peace[39]. After his resignation, Bevan served as Shadow Foreign Secretary from 1955 to 1959. [12], During the Second World War he was one of the main leaders of the left in the Commons, opposing the wartime Coalition government. Here you can learn about the life and work of Aneurin (Nye) Bevan (1897-1960), founder of Britain's National Health Service and one of the Labour movement's greatest orators and thinkers. This statement is often misconstrued: Bevan argued that unilateralism would result in Britain's loss of allies, and one interpretation of his metaphor is that nakedness would come from the lack of allies, not the lack of weapons. He was not a cold-blooded rationalist. "[97], In March 1952, a poorly prepared Bevan came off the worse in an evening Commons debate on health with Conservative backbencher Iain Macleod, whose performance led Churchill to appoint him as Minister of Health some six weeks after the debate. In 1934, he married fellow MP Jennie Lee, who was described as more left-wing than Nye. [43] Bevan was relieved that the country had united against Nazi Germany in the fight against fascism to provide a common enemy away from the working class. He was later fired for refusing to unload, and successfully challenged the motion but was moved to Pochin, generally considered a punishment due to the poor site conditions. The True Tale of Wales Legendary Hay Castle, 8 Formidable Fighters of the Hellenistic Period, Operation Unthinkable: Churchills Postwar Contingency Plan, The Pirates Code: Laws and Life Aboard Ship, How the Island of Rhodes Overcame a Superpower, Historical Trips - Book your next historical adventure, 10 Must-See Medieval Landmarks in England, Join Dan Snow for the Anniversary of the D-Day Landings, Lost Literature: Why Most English Texts Didnt Survive the Middle Ages, The Legacy of Hal 9000: How Science Fiction Depictions of AI Have Changed Over Time. Whether you want to learn the history of a city, or you simply need a recommendation for your next meal, Discover Walks Team offers an ever-growing travel encyclopaedia. He knelt reverently in respect to a friend or friend's faith, but he never pretended to be anything other than what he was, a humanist. Bevan Festival. 2. [98], Out of office, Bevan soon exacerbated the split within the Labour Party between the right and the left which weakened the party in the 1950s. In January 1951, Bevan became Minister for Labour but resigned in protest just three months later after Hugh Gaitskell, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, proposed an introduction of prescription charges for dental care and spectacles in order to save a potential 25 million to meet the financial demands of the Korean War. [6] He worked at the butcher's for several months before leaving school, instead working in the local Ty-Trist Colliery. He is particularly noted for his tenure as Minister for Health in Clement Attlees government, in which he pioneered the creation of the British National Health Service. ], In 1951, with the retirement of Ernest Bevin, Bevan was a leading candidate for Foreign Secretary. Aneurin Bevan | Founder of the National Health Service Bevan always stood up for the underdog, and was a voice for the unemployed in the period between the two world wars when joblessness was a major domestic political issue. Bevan shared a liberal ideology and was additionally a supporter of the Liberal party that had a change of ideology to socialism after reading Robert Blatchfords in the Clarion. Bevan was also limited due to his desire for new homes to be bigger and of better quality than the ones they were being built to replace, based on the recommendations of a 1943 report by the Dudley Committee, and a shortage of skilled workers to undertake the work. [132] In 2002, Bevan was voted as the 45th greatest Briton of all time by the BBC public opinion poll, 100 Greatest Britons. It was during this period that he became convinced by the ideas of socialism. Who was Aneurin Bevan, when did he create the NHS and where - The Sun [7], Bevan became a well-known local orator and was seen by his employers, the Tredegar Iron and Coal Company, as a troublemaker. [10], 1919 saw the foundation of the Tredegar Labour Party and Bevan was selected as one of four Labour delegates to contest the West Ward in the Tredegar Urban District election. Some historians have questioned how influential the college was on his political development. Aneurin Bevan was a founding member of the Query Club in 1920 alongside his brother.