50 Facts About Manny Shinwell

Manny Shinwell became a trade union organiser and one of the leading figures of Red Clydeside.

Manny Shinwell was imprisoned in 1919 for his alleged involvement in the disturbances in Glasgow in January of that year.

Manny Shinwell returned to the House of Commons in 1935, defeating former UK Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, who by that time had been expelled from the Labour Party.

Manny Shinwell is perhaps best remembered as the Minister of Fuel and Power in the Attlee ministry that nationalised coal mining in 1946.

Manny Shinwell was in charge of Britain's coal supply during the extremely harsh winter of January to March 1947, during which the supply system collapsed, leaving the United Kingdom to freeze and close down.

Manny Shinwell became unpopular with the public and was sacked in October 1947.

Manny Shinwell then served as Secretary of State for War, and then as Minister of Defence from 1950 to 1951.

Manny Shinwell was born in Spitalfields, London, but his family moved to Glasgow, Scotland.

Manny Shinwell's father was a Polish Jew who had a small clothing shop, and his mother, a Dutch Jew, was a cook from London.

Manny Shinwell educated himself in a public library and at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery.

Manny Shinwell enjoyed sport, particularly boxing, and he was the trainer of a local football team.

Manny Shinwell left school at age eleven to be apprenticed as a tailor, and began his working life as a machinist in a clothing workshop.

Manny Shinwell subsequently became the secretary of the Glasgow branch of the NSFU.

Manny Shinwell was the local secretary of the BSU until it became part of the Amalgamated Marine Workers' Union in 1922, after which he served as National Organiser of the new organisation.

Manny Shinwell was afterwards tried for incitement to riot and was sentenced to five months' imprisonment in Calton Jail, Edinburgh.

Manny Shinwell lost his seat in 1924, but was re-elected for Linlithgowshire at a by-election in 1928.

Manny Shinwell then served again as Secretary for Mines from 1930 to 1931.

At the time Manny Shinwell was an admirer of MacDonald and tried to dissuade him from forming a National Government in 1931.

Manny Shinwell again lost his seat at the general election that year.

Manny Shinwell returned to the Commons in 1935 after defeating MacDonald for Seaham Harbour, County of Durham.

Manny Shinwell campaigned vigorously, along with left-wingers such as Aneurin Bevan, for Britain to support the Popular Front government in Spain against Franco in the Spanish Civil War.

Manny Shinwell said he had taken this to be an anti-semitic remark.

Manny Shinwell became chairman of the Labour Party in 1942.

Manny Shinwell served in Clement Attlee's Cabinet after the Labour victory in 1945 as Minister of Fuel and Power, and in 1946 he presided over the nationalisation of the mining industry.

Manny Shinwell declared the middle class "not worth a tinker's cuss".

Manny Shinwell denied there were problems and refused to assume responsibility, blaming the climate, the railway system, or capitalism generally.

Manny Shinwell was widely criticised for his failure to avert this crisis.

Manny Shinwell was bitterly resentful at being replaced by Hugh Gaitskell, his former deputy and a public schoolboy.

Manny Shinwell was attacked by James Callaghan for his lack of zeal about further nationalisation.

Manny Shinwell was demoted to Secretary of State for War a position which he held until 1950.

Manny Shinwell was a vigorous War Minister, who got on well with the Army and was seen as jingoistic.

In November 1947 a report from MI5 alleged that Manny Shinwell had passed secret information to a man named "Stanley", who had passed it on to Zionist paramilitary group, the Irgun.

Manny Shinwell knew self-styled "contact man" Sidney Stanley, whom he had approached for help in finding employment for his son Ernie, and Stanley had obtained information on the disbandment of the Transjordan Frontier Force from some government source.

Manny Shinwell's seat became Easington at the February 1950 election, after which he was promoted to Minister of Defence and became a full member of the Cabinet once more.

Manny Shinwell was responsible for the rearmament programme which precipitated the resignation of Aneurin Bevan from the Cabinet in the spring of 1951, although Gaitskell actually gave him less defence spending than he wanted.

Manny Shinwell was by now seen as being on the right of the Labour Party.

Manny Shinwell stepped down from the Shadow Cabinet in 1955.

Manny Shinwell was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour in the 1965 Birthday Honours.

Manny Shinwell was vehemently opposed to Wilson's attempt to enter the EEC in 1966, and resigned as Chairman of the Labour Party in 1967.

Manny Shinwell got on well both with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and with the journalist Sir John Junor.

Manny Shinwell was created a life peer as Baron Manny Shinwell, of Easington in the County of Durham, on 29 June 1970.

Manny Shinwell later became chair of the All-Party Lords Defence Study Group.

Manny Shinwell resigned the Labour Party whip in 1982 in protest at left wing militancy.

In October 1984 Manny Shinwell celebrated his hundredth birthday against the backdrop of the miners' strike.

Manny Shinwell continued to be active in the House of Lords until shortly before his death.

Manny Shinwell became the longest-lived peer on 26 March 1986, dying a little over a month later on 8 May, aged 101.

Manny Shinwell held the record for the second longest-lived British MP until overtaken by Bert Hazell in November 2008.

Manny Shinwell was married three times: from 1903 to 1954 to Fay Freeman, by whom he had two sons and a daughter, from 1956 to 1971 to Dinah Meyer, who was Danish, and from 1972 to 1977 to Sarah Sturgo.

Manny Shinwell's great-niece is the former MP for Liverpool Wavertree, Luciana Berger.

Manny Shinwell sat for sculptor Alan Thornhill for a portrait in clay.