Aneurin Bevan

Aneurin Bevan (1897-1960), leading Welsh politician who was the architect of the British National Health Service.

Bevan was born in Tredegar, Monmouthshire, on November 15, 1897, the sixth of ten children of David and Phoebe Bevan. His father was a miner, a Methodist, and a lover of books and music. His mother was the daughter of a blacksmith. Educated at Sirhowy elementary school, he worked in the local collieries from the age of 14. He joined the Independent Labour Party and for several years espoused syndicalism. Bevan's bad eye condition (nystagmus) enabled him to avoid conscription in World War I. His grasp of Marxist economics and labour history was reinforced when he attended the Central Labour College, London, on a South Wales Miners' Federation scholarship, from 1919 to 1921.

Blacklisted from the mines as a militant socialist on his return to South Wales, Bevan experienced lengthy periods of unemployment. He made his mark on Tredegar Urban District Council from 1922 and in 1928 was also elected to Monmouthshire county council. During the 1926 General Strike he was the capable chairman of the Tredegar Council of Action and subsequently the Relief Committee for the lengthy mining lock-out. Elected MP for Ebbw Vale in 1929, he made his name as a left-wing rebel and as a formidable champion of the unemployed. He married another left-wing labour movement figure in October 1934—Jennie Lee, an even greater rebel than her husband.

In the late 1930s Bevan vigorously opposed fascism in Spain and elsewhere. Together with other left-wing figures, he supported the Popular Front Campaign, organized by Sir Stafford Cripps, advocating military support for the beleaguered Spanish government in its struggle against the Fascist Falange (see Spanish Civil War). For this he was expelled from the Labour Party along with Cripps, Charles Trevelyan, and George Strauss in January 1939 (though they were readmitted that December). During World War II he was often a vigorous opponent of aspects of the government of Winston Churchill, both in Parliament and as editor of Tribune (1942-1945), the left-wing weekly newspaper.

After the Labour Party victory in the 1945 general election, Bevan entered the government of Clement Attlee as minister of health, responsible for housing as well as health. He had much experience of both issues as a councillor and as a miners' activist involved in miners' health schemes in Tredegar. He played the major role in the creation of the National Health Service (NHS), carrying out with skill the intricate negotiations that brought the NHS into being in 1948. Bevan also played a major part in introducing the National Assistance Act, 1948. Between January and April 1951 he served as minister of labour. Although disappointed when not promoted to the office of either Chancellor of the Exchequer or foreign secretary when vacancies occurred, his resignation from the government on April 22, 1951, was primarily on policy grounds. He clashed with Hugh Gaitskell over the introduction of prescription charges (which undercut the principles of the NHS) and over what he rightly deemed to be an impossibly large rearmament programme.

Labour lost the 1951 general election and remained split between Bevanites and Gaitskellites. Bevan was the charismatic figure of the left. He had great personal magnetism and had overcome a stammer to become a great orator, both in Parliament and at public meetings. He published his views on democratic socialism in the book In Place Of Fear (1952), a bestseller but one that did not prove very influential. After Attlee's retirement Bevan lost the leadership contest to Gaitskell. He also failed to be elected deputy leader, but in 1956 was elected party treasurer. After many clashes over foreign policy, which even led to the brief loss of the party whip in 1954, Bevan moved closer to the leadership in 1957 when he opposed unilateral nuclear disarmament (see Arms Control and Disarmament). This dismayed his many followers on the left. His election as deputy leader in 1959 reunited the Labour Party, but from the end of year he was terminally ill with cancer, dying on July 6, 1960. Bevan's death was widely mourned and he became a political legend, with Harold Wilson and others reverentially referring to his wisdom in speeches later in the 20th century.