10 facts about aneurin bevan

While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. [1] The town was situated in the South Wales Valleys and was on the northern edge of the South Wales coalfield. Lesser-known, perhaps, is Bevans own personal background. [102] In July of the same year, Bevan announced his intention to stand for election as the Treasurer of the Labour Party against Hugh Gaitskell. His National Health Service policy met great disapproval from the British Medical Association. 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". Corrections? 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. After two years at Central Labour College, London, he entered politics and in 1929 was elected to the House of Commons as Labour member from Ebbw Vale. Inspired by the Tredger Medical Aid Society of South Wales, Bevan initiated the National Health Service (NHS), which was managed with public funds and aimed to provide free medical . [48][65] They threatened to derail the National Health Service scheme before it had even begun, as medical practitioners continued to withhold their support just months before the launch of the service. He went on to serve as shadow foreign secretary from 1956-59 and deputy leader of the Labour party from 1959-60. Anenurin Bevan, Minister of Health, on the first day of the National Health Service, 5 July 1948 at Park Hospital, Davyhulme, near Manchester. His influence waned after his departure, although a left-wing group (not under his control) within the party became known as "Bevanites". In 1934 he married another Labour MP, Jennie Lee. Bevan countered that the initial overspending was down to years of underinvestment in the British medical system prior to the Second World War: by the start of the 1950s, the early overspending had come to an end.[65]. FIGHT FOR OUR NHS free at the point of need for all. He is particularly noted for his tenure as Minister for Health in Clement Attlee's government, in which he pioneered the creation of the British National Health Service. Bevan opposed the heavy censorship imposed on radio and newspapers and wartime Defence Regulation 18B, which gave the Home Secretary the powers to intern citizens. [60] He earned a rebuke from Attlee, but Bevan contended that his Welsh mining constituency did not send him to Parliament to "dress up", and he declined to wear formal attire at further Buckingham Palace functions. [107] He instead stood again for the role of party treasurer and was duly elected, beating George Brown.[108]. ], In 1951, with the retirement of Ernest Bevin, Bevan was a leading candidate for Foreign Secretary. Bevans role as Minister for Health was hugely important given Labours pledge to create a welfare state that included sick pay, unemployment benefits, pensions and free healthcare for all, irrespective of wealth or background. They collected monies among themselves was what they did to support a member who needed it each week. [9] The miners remained on strike for six months. In 2004, more than 44 years after his death, he was voted first in a list of 100 Welsh Heroes, having been credited for his contribution to the founding of the welfare state in the UK. Bevan had been inspired by the Tredegar Medical Aid Society in his hometown, where residents would pay a subscription that would fund access for all of the town's inhabitants to have free access to medical services such as nursing or dental care. Aneurin Bevan and the setting up of the NHS The National Health Service. 11. [136], In 2015, Welsh actor Michael Sheen gave a speech in which he described Bevan as a mythical creature, stating, "He had cast-iron integrity and a raging passion".[12]. They would collect money weekly for any member who needed it. "[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. [82] It was later claimed that his words had cost Labour more than two million votes. [54], He believed that the Second World War would give Britain the opportunity to create "a new society". It was around this time that he first "reject[ed] his chapel upbringing" and became an atheist. Like many other students of Bevans class, his formal education ended when he was 14 years of age when he began to work in the mines. Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Health, on the first day of the National Health Service, 5 July 1948 at Park Hospital, Davyhulme, near Manchester. [113] According to the journalist Paul Routledge, Donald Bruce, a former MP and Parliamentary Private Secretary and adviser to Bevan, had told him that Bevan's shift on the disarmament issue was the result of discussions with the Soviet government, where they advised him to push for British retention of nuclear weapons so they could possibly be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the United States.[114]. 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 as critical of Nasserist Egypt's seizure of the Suez Canal on 26 July 1956 as he was of the subsequent Anglo-French military response. [103] Although unsuccessful in his bid, he did celebrate 25 years as the MP for Ebbw Vale. But it means abandonment of the class struggle and the subservience of the British workers to their own employers. Aneurin's name is pronounced 'uh-ny-rin'. Despite resistance from opposition parties and the British Medical Association, the National Health Service Act 1946 was passed and launched in 1948, nationalising more than 2,500 hospitals within the United Kingdom. Bevan's reputation as a hard-line socialist typically preceded him: Sir William Douglas, who served as Bevan's deputy in the Ministry of Health, had initially stated that he would "never work with a man like that". His remains were cremated at Gwent Crematorium in Croesyceiliog in a private family ceremony. [12] Bevan resigned from his position two weeks later, stating both the proposed changes and the increase in military expenditure that necessitated the need for such proposals. While this was not an insignificant achievement: the 850,000 homes built in the four years immediately after the war ended was the biggest housing programme ever introduced,[78] Bevan's rate of house-building was seen as less of an achievement than that of his Conservative (indirect) successor, Harold Macmillan, who was able to complete some 300,000 new homes a year as Minister for Housing in the 1950s. 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]. Aneurin "Nye" Bevan was a Welsh politician born on November 15, 1897. [131], The Aneurin Bevan Memorial Stones were erected at the beginning of the Sirhowy Valley Walk with three smaller stones (representing three towns of his constituency Ebbw Vale, Rhymney and Tredegar) surrounding a larger stone representing Bevan. [42] He emphasised that the government had no arguments to persuade young men to fight "except merely in another squalid attempt to defend themselves against the redistribution of international swag". He became a well-known local orator, and was regarded with suspicion by his employers, the Tredegar Iron and Coal Company. Aneurin Bevan was born on 15 th November 1897 in Tredegar, Monmouthshire (now in Blaenau Gwent). Image Credit: Anenurin Bevan, Minister of Health, on the first day of the National Health Service, 5 July 1948 at Park Hospital, Davyhulme, near Manchester / Wikimedia Commons. [34] Bevan was readmitted to the party on 20 December 1939,[35] after agreeing "to refrain from conducting or taking part in campaigns in opposition to the declared policy of the Party".[36][37]. At the start of World War Two the government realised that, if it was to cope with the huge number of anticipated . Bevan had said "I would rather be kept alive in the efficient if cold altruism of a large hospital than expire in a gush of warm sympathy in a small one". His nomination received a severe blow on the same day it was announced, when two unions that traditionally sided with the left, the National Union of Mineworkers and the Amalgamated Engineering Union, pledged their support for his opponent. He was first elected as MP for Ebbw Vale in 1929, and used his Parliamentary platform to make a number of influential criticisms of Winston Churchill and his Conservative government during the Second World War. [4] Aneurin Bevan attended Sirhowy Elementary School, where he achieved little. After eighteen months of ongoing dispute between the Ministry of Health and the BMA, Bevan finally managed to win over the support of the vast majority of the medical profession by offering a couple of minor concessions, including allowing consultants to keep their own private practices and continuing to allow doctors to be paid in capitation fees rather than salaries,[66] but without compromising the fundamental principles of his National Health Service proposals. Contact, Facts are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. We may all come from different walks of life but we have one common passion - learning through travel. Icon of 1960s Britain: Who Was Mary Quant? Image Credit: Peter Aylmer / Nye Bevan stones / CC BY-SA 2.0 / Wikimedia Commons. [84][85] During his tenure, he helped to secure a deal for railwaymen which provided them with a significant pay increase. Bevan died in his sleep at 4.10pm on 6 July 1960, at the age of 62, at his home, Asheridge Farm, Chesham, Buckinghamshire. Bevan died from stomach cancer in 1960 at the age of 62. He strongly criticised the National Government's rearmament plans in the face of the rise of Nazi Germany, saying to the Labour conference in autumn 1937: If the immediate international situation is used as an excuse to get us to drop our opposition to the rearmament programme of the Government, the next phase must be that we must desist from any industrial or political action that may disturb national unity in the face of Fascist aggression. Bevan was born in Tredeger, Monmouthshire, a working-class mining town where some 90% of the workforce relied upon the local mines for employment. His wage of 5 a week was paid by the members of the local Miners' Lodge. [22] Although described in The Times as "an outstanding back-bench critic" and "one of (Labour's) most brilliant members in debate", his appointment was regarded as a relative surprise, given his previous disciplinary issues. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. [12], During the Second World War he was one of the main leaders of the left in the Commons, opposing the wartime Coalition government. [47] His fierce opposition made him unpopular with some portions of the public at the time, his wife later described how the couple would frequently receive parcels filled with excrement at their home.[48]. In short Hitler is to rule Britain by proxy. A member of the Tredegar branch of the South Wales Miners Federation, Bevan was the head of his local Miners Lodge at just 19 years of age. During the 1926 General Strike, Bevan emerged as one of the leaders of the South Wales miners. [75][79] Macmillan was also able to concentrate full-time on the housing crisis, instead of being obliged, like Bevan, to combine his housing portfolio with that for Health (which for Bevan took the higher priority: he once stated tongue-in-cheek that he devoted "five minutes a week to housing"). 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. "[83], Bevan was instead appointed Minister of Labour in January 1951 in place of George Isaacs. With his posture in parliament, he gained great support from his constituents. The National Health Service and the Welfare State have come to be used as interchangeable terms, and in the mouths of some people as terms of reproach. Aneurin Bevan was one of the most important ministers of the post-war Labour government and the chief architect of the National Health Service. The manager of the colliery found an excuse to get him dismissed. 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. He was born in Tredegar, Wales, on 15th November 1897. He was the architect of the National Health Service and leader of the left-wing (Bevanite) group of the Labour Party. The same year, Labour were defeated in the General Election. When the strike started on 3 May 1926, Bevan soon emerged as one of the leaders of the South Wales miners. He agreed to serve as shadow foreign secretary under Gaitskell. His dad was a miner and the poor working class family in which Bevan grew up gave him first-hand experience of the problems of . Macmillan noted that despite being a "controversial figure" during his career, Bevan's death had seen an outpouring of genuine "admiration and affection". [128], Bevan was particularly noted for his public speaking, being described by Robin Butler, Baron Butler of Brockwell, as "the greatest parliamentary speaker since Charles James Fox". [121] In May 1960 Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, while in England visited Bevan at his home in Asheridge Farm (where Bevan was a keen amateur farmer, keeping cattle and pigs).[122]. Rediscovering Richard III with Matt Lewis, Rome and the Amalfi Coast with Tristan Hughes, Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, How Rome Became the Sole Superpower in the Mediterranean, Charles Martel: A Heroic Leader of Medieval Europe. [120], After a lengthy period in hospital, on 14 February 1960 Bevan returned home and announced he would not be returning to politics in the near future, so as to be able to recuperate and plan an extended holiday. Did the Wars of the Roses End at the Battle of Tewkesbury? The new Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, appointed Bevan as Minister of Health, with a remit that also covered housing. His autobiography, In Place of Fear, appeared in 1952, Aneurin Bevan. In February 1925, his father died of pneumoconiosis, an illness caused by the inhalation of coal dust. There, he spent two years studying economics, politics and history. Photo by Jeremy Segrott from Cardiff, Wales, UK Wikimedia Commons. We will send you the latest TV programmes, podcast episodes and articles, as well as exclusive offers from our shop and carefully selected partners. Bevan had been a supporter of the Liberal Party in his youth, but was converted to socialism by the writings of Robert Blatchford in The Clarion and joined the Independent Labour Party. Aneurin Bevan was born on November 15, 1897, in Tredegar, Monmouthshire, to David Bevan and Phoebe nee Prothero. [1][3], The couple had ten children altogethersix boys and four girlsalthough four died in infancy and one died at the age of eight. Two of the key elements of Bevan's proposals were this nationalisation of the hospital services and the abolition of the sale and purchase of goodwill by general practitioners. They have offended against every principle of decency and there is only one way in which they can even begin to restore their tarnished reputation and that is to get out! The Aneurin Bevan, former Cross Inn, September 2018, This is a photo of the listed building number. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). [88][89] Two other ministers, John Freeman and Harold Wilson, resigned at the same time. His father died by pneumoconiosis (a lung condition caused by long term inhalation of coal dust) but no compensation was paid to him, as it was not classed as an industrial disease under the Workman's Compensation Act. Dr James Calvert, medical director for Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, said it was important to remember the report was made during the pandemic, "which has significantly disrupted the . The three won their case, and obtained financial damages of 2,500 each. In 1929, Bevan was elected as the Labour member of parliament for Ebbw Vale. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so. In his political career, Bevan served as a minister of health in Clement Attlees Labor government of 1945, he was responsible for developing housing programs and for establishing the National Health Service. Raised in Monmouthshire by a Welsh working-class family, he was the son of a coal miner and left school at 14. Aneurin Bevan was born on 15 November 1897 in Tredegar in Wales. He was readmitted in November, the same year after he agreed to desist from involving himself in campaigns that opposed the declared policy of the Party. From 1950, onwards it's been attacked, the reason he resigned from government, but has managed to last 75yrs. [40] When the government introduced voluntary national service in December 1938, Bevan argued that Labour should demand the nationalisation of the armaments industry, support the democratic government of Spain and sign an Anglo-Soviet pact in return for its support. Aneurin Bevan was the son of coal miner David Bevan and Phoebe, a seamstress. Omissions? He was the son of coal miner David Bevan and Phoebe (ne Prothero), a seamstress. Shortly afterwards he resigned from the government in protest at the introduction of prescription charges for dental care and spectacles. [104] The Parliamentary Labour Party voted 141 to 113 to withdraw the whip from him, but it was restored within a month, due to his popularity. These numbers were reached by lowering the quality standards originally put forward by Bevan, with council houses featuring gardens being largely dropped in favour of tower blocks and flats. With his activism and exuberance, his employer Tredegar Iron Company saw him as a troublesome person but he amazingly became a popular local speaker. Updates? Number 10, The Circle, was home to the Tredegar Medical Aid Society, which was used as a blueprint by Aneurin Bevan when he set up the National Health Service for the UK in 1948. Later today he will be taken home to Wales. By 19 he was active in trade unionism and was head of his local miners' lodge . After Bevan left the Health ministry in 1951 he could never regain his level of success and feuded with fellow Labour leaders, using his strong political base as a weapon. He is known for leading the creation of the National Health Service (NHS) to give medical care free at point-of-need to all Britons. Aged 14, he left school to start working in the mines, starting at 5:30am each day and returning home late in the evening. Bevan's key speeches in the legislative arena are to be found in: For the local health board headquartered in Caerleon, Wales, see, Minister of Labour and National Service (1951). Bevan, Aneurin (1897-1960). [45] Clement Attlee expressed his support that Bevan should have been the leader of the Labour Party during his lifetime but was held back by his demeanour, stating "he wants to be two things simultaneously, rebel and official leader, and you can't be both". Bevan was a great personal charm but was sometimes so rude to opponents that Churchill once called him a merchant of discourtesy. [12] Churchill would later label Bevan "a squalid nuisance". During World War Two, Bevan was one of the leaders of the left in the House of Commons. [69][70] The removal of the criteria of "working class" from local authority housing provision was seen as a first step, widening access to the council housing that was becoming an ever larger part of the UK housing stock and which made up a majority of new homes built after the war. Student Activities. However, by the end of his tenure, he had declared Bevan as "the best minister we have had". [67][65] Some 2,688 voluntary and municipal hospitals in England and Wales were nationalised and came under Bevan's supervisory control as Health Minister. Aneurin Bevan. Prime Minister Attlee rejected Bevan in favour of Herbert Morrison because he distrusted Bevan's personality. At a dinner in late 1955 or early 1956 to celebrate the publication of the Guillebaud Report into NHS costs Bevan remarked to Julian Tudor Hart "ultimately I had to stuff their mouths with gold" about his handling of the consultants. By 1932, Mosley's New Party had migrated from the left over to the far-right of British politics and was rebranded as the British Union of Fascists. Get out! [31] In 1936 he joined the board of the new socialist newspaper Tribune. [8][9] He and his brother Billy did eventually leave Ty-Tryst and worked at the Bedwellty pit, but were forced to move again after a disagreement with the site's deputy manager over Bevan reporting information to the miner's inspector. Bevan's maternal grandfather John was a blacksmith who had moved to Tredegar from Hay-on-Wye to work in the Bedwellty mines. When Bevan was made a minister in 1945, he envisaged the social housing sector as a housing service similar to the National Health Service, ensuring that everyone had access to decent and affordable homes, with people still having the option to live in owner occupation or the private sector if they so chose (with grants made available to owner-occupiers and private landlords to bring dwellings up to decent standards).

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