62 Facts About Ernest Bevin

Ernest Bevin was a British statesman, trade union leader and Labour Party politician.

Ernest Bevin cofounded and served as General Secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union from 1922 to 1940 and served as Minister of Labour and National Service in the wartime coalition government.

Ernest Bevin succeeded in maximising the British labour supply for both the armed services and domestic industrial production with a minimum of strikes and disruption.

Ernest Bevin secured Marshall Aid, strongly opposed communism and aided in the creation of NATO.

Ernest Bevin's tenure saw the end of British rule in India and the independence of India and East and West Pakistan, as well as the end of the Mandate of Palestine and the creation of the State of Israel.

Ernest Bevin was born in the village of Winsford in Somerset, England, to Diana Ernest Bevin, who since 1877 had described herself as a widow.

Ernest Bevin had little formal education; he had briefly attended two village schools and then Hayward's School, Crediton, starting in 1890 and leaving in 1892.

Ernest Bevin later recalled being asked as a child to read the newspaper aloud for the benefit of adults in his family who were illiterate.

Ernest Bevin was a large, strong man, and by the time of his political prominence, he was very heavy.

Ernest Bevin spoke with such a strong West Country accent that on one occasion, listeners at Cabinet had difficulty in deciding whether he was talking about "Hugh and Nye " or "you and I".

Ernest Bevin had developed his oratorical skills from his time as a Baptist lay preacher, which he had given up as a profession to become a full-time labour activist.

Ernest Bevin married Florence Townley, daughter of a wine taster at a Bristol wine merchants.

Florence Ernest Bevin was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1952.

In 1922, Ernest Bevin was one of the founding leaders of the Transport and General Workers' Union, which soon became Britain's largest trade union.

Ernest Bevin was strongly opposed to communism and direct action.

Ernest Bevin's opponents claimed that was partly because anti-Semitic paranoia, which made him see communism as a "Jewish plot" against Britain.

Ernest Bevin took part in the British General Strike in 1926 but without enthusiasm.

Ernest Bevin had no great faith in parliamentary politics but had nevertheless been a member of the Labour Party from the time of its formation, and he unsuccessfully fought Bristol Central at the 1918 general election.

Ernest Bevin was defeated by the Coalition Conservative Thomas Inskip.

Ernest Bevin 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.

At the 1931 general election, Ernest Bevin was persuaded by the remaining leaders of the Labour Party to contest Gateshead on the understanding that if successful he would remain as general secretary of the TGWU.

Ernest Bevin was a trade unionist who believed in getting material benefits for his members through direct negotiations with strike action to be used as a last resort.

Ernest Bevin was a firm opponent of fascism and of the British appeasement of the fascist powers.

In later years, Ernest Bevin gave Attlee, whom he privately referred to as "little Clem", staunch support, especially in 1947, when Morrison and Cripps led further intrigue against Attlee.

Ernest Bevin appointed Bevin to the position of Minister of Labour and National Service.

Ernest Bevin drew up the demobilisation scheme that ultimately returned millions of military personnel and civilian war workers into the peacetime economy.

Ernest Bevin remained Minister of Labour until 1945 when Labour left the Coalition government.

An alternative view is offered by Charmley, who writes that Ernest Bevin read and wrote with some difficulty and that examination of Foreign Office documents shows little sign of the frequent annotations made by Anthony Eden.

That suggests that Ernest Bevin preferred to reach most of his decisions after oral discussion with his advisers.

Charmley argues that much of Ernest Bevin's success came because he shared the views of those officials.

The historian Martin H Folly argues that Bevin was not automatically pro-American.

Ernest Bevin felt that Britain's problems were in part caused by American irresponsibility.

Ernest Bevin's strategy was to bring Washington around to support Britain's policies and argued that Britain had earned American support and ought to compensate it for its sacrifices against the Nazis.

Folly considers that Ernest Bevin was not coldly pragmatic uncritically pro-American or a puppet manipulated by the British Foreign Office.

Ernest Bevin played a key role in securing the low-interest $3.75 billion Anglo-American loan as the only real alternative to national bankruptcy.

Ernest Bevin looked for ways to bring Western Europe together in a military alliance at the beginning of the Cold War.

Ernest Bevin was unsentimental about the British Empire in places for which the growth of nationalism had made direct rule no longer practicable.

Ernest Bevin was part of the Cabinet that approved a speedy British withdrawal from India in 1947 and neighbouring colonies.

Ernest Bevin approved the construction of a huge new base in East Africa.

Ernest Bevin agreed with Duff Cooper, the British Ambassador in Paris, that the Dunkirk Treaty would be a step in this direction and thought that Eden's objection in 1944, when Cooper first proposed it, that such moves might alienate the Soviets no longer applied.

In December 1947, Ernest Bevin hoped that the US would support Britain's "strategic, political and economic position in the Middle East".

Ernest Bevin was referring to the Schuman Plan to set up the European Coal and Steel Community.

Ernest Bevin strongly encouraged the United States to take a vigorously anti-Communist foreign policy in the early years of the Cold War.

Ernest Bevin was a leading advocate for British combat operations in the Korean War.

In 1945, Ernest Bevin advocated the creation of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly and said in the House of Commons, "There should be a study of a house directly elected by the people of the world to whom the nations are accountable".

In 1950, Ernest Bevin offered recognition to the People's Republic of China.

Attlee and Ernest Bevin worked together on the decision to produce a British atomic bomb despite intense opposition from pro-Soviet elements of the Labour Party, groups that Ernest Bevin detested.

Ernest Bevin was Foreign Secretary during the period when the Mandate for Palestine ended, and the State of Israel was created.

Ernest Bevin failed to secure the stated British objectives in that area of foreign policy, which included a peaceful settlement of the situation and the avoidance of involuntary population transfers.

Leitch argued that Ernest Bevin tended to make a bad situation worse by making ill-chosen abrasive remarks.

For refusing to remove limits on Jewish immigration to Palestine in the aftermath of the war, Ernest Bevin earned the hatred of Zionists.

When no agreement could be reached, Ernest Bevin threatened to hand the problem over to the United Nations.

The threat failed to move either side, the Jewish representatives because they believed that Ernest Bevin was bluffing and the Arab representatives because they believed that their cause would prevail before the UN General Assembly.

Ernest Bevin accordingly announced that he would "ask the UN to take the Palestine question into consideration".

Ernest Bevin was infuriated by attacks on British troops carried out by the more extreme of the Jewish militant groups, the Irgun and Lehi, commonly known as the Stern Gang.

Ernest Bevin negotiated the Portsmouth Treaty with Iraq, which, according to Iraqi Foreign Minister Muhammad Fadhel al-Jamali, was accompanied by a British undertaking to withdraw from Palestine in such a fashion as to provide for swift Arab occupation of all its territory.

Ernest Bevin died from a heart attack in the following month, still holding the key to his red box.

James Chuter Ede, Home Secretary throughout the time that Ernest Bevin was at the Foreign Office, had worked with Churchill, Attlee, Keynes and many other significant figures.

Ernest Bevin was offered many honours as his reputation grew, but declined all of them.

Ernest Bevin succeeded in convincing the United States to take over some of Britain's burdens, especially Greece.

Ernest Bevin thereby became a major influence in pushing the United States into a leadership role through the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, NATO and the Cold War.

In that interpretation, Ernest Bevin lost the opportunity to make Britain a leader in European affairs, and it instead became more of a tail on the American kite.