6 July 1960: Death of Aneurin Bevan, British Politician

Aneurin Bevan was born into an area of Wales where two-thirds of the male population worked underground in the mines. Throughout his career he championed the cause of the working classes and his service as Minister for Health gave the British universal healthcare through the National Health Service.

Aneurin “Nye” Bevan was born in Tredegar, Monmouthshire, on 15 November 1897. He was the sixth of ten children of David and Phoebe Bevan, although four of his siblings did not survive to adulthood.

Bevan underachieved at school due, in part, to a stammer and left in 1911 to join the other male members of his family down the mine of the Tredegar Iron and Coal Company. His education did not end, however, as he was able to take advantage of local social science courses based on the teaching of the Central Labour College. Also, with the help of Walter Conway of the local Independent Labour Party, Bevan defeated his stammer in public speaking.

Excused military service during the First World War due to nystagmus, an eye disease, Bevan became involved with the South Wales Miners’ Federation and, by the age of 19, he was the chairman of the local Miners’ Lodge. Two years at the Central Labour College in London from 1919 to 1921 studying economics, politics and history completed his education.

After his return to Tredegar, Bevan was only able to find work for ten months during the next five years. Then, in 1926, he started work as a union official just before the start of the General Strike. During the strike, and the continuing pit lock-outs after it ended, Bevan was responsible for distributing strike pay in Tredegar.

Bevan was elected to Monmouthshire County Council in 1928 and, in the following year, he was selected as the Labour Party candidate for Ebbw Vale in the general election. He won the seat comfortably. He used his first speech in the House of Commons to attack Winston Churchill and the pair became lifelong enemies.

Even members of Bevan’s own Labour Party were not spared his outspoken remarks. He criticized Margaret Bondfield for refusing to increase unemployment benefits and his own party leader, Ramsay MacDonald, for introducing means testing.

Always on the left of his party, Bevan joined the Socialist League (originally the Society for Socialist Inquiry and Propaganda) in 1931. Created by G. D. H. Cole, the Socialist League’s members included Clement Attlee, Ernest Bevin, Stafford Cripps, Michael Foot and Jennie Lee (who Bevan married in 1934).

The Socialist League campaigned for a united socialist front against fascism during the 1930s to include all parties of the left, including the Communist Party. It also argued against non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War and the policy of appeasement. Bevan was expelled from the Labour Party in March 1939, along with Stafford Cripps and Charles Trevelyan, for speaking on the same platforms as members of the Communist Party, although all three were readmitted by the end of the year.

During the Second World War Bevan was critical of Churchill and his coalition government, both in parliament and in the pages of the Tribune newspaper, which he edited from 1941 to 1945. Again, he argued against not only the Conservatives but also ministers of his own party.

Following the Labour Party’s landslide general election victory in 1945, Bevan became the youngest member of Clement Attlee’s cabinet as Minister of Health with the added responsibility of rebuilding the country’s housing. If his record on housing was deemed to be slow, though far from a failure, it was only in comparison with the effort he gave to his greatest triumph.

The Beverage Report of November 1942 had recommended wide-ranging welfare reforms including universal healthcare. As Minister of Health, Bevan published the National Health Service Bill and white paper in March 1946 and saw it pass into law on 6 November 1946. The legislation would see the nationalisation of hospitals and medical staff become employees of the state. After almost two years of negotiations with doctors, who threatened to refuse to support the scheme, the NHS was born on 5 July 1948.

Bevan became Minister of Labour in January 1951 but resigned in April, along with Harold Wilson and John Freeman, over the introduction of prescription charges for denture and spectacles. The left of the Labour Party drifted towards Bevan and became known as the Bevanites.

The Labour Party lost the general elections of 1951 and 1955. Attlee resigned and left the party leadership to be contested between Bevan, Hugh Gaitskell and Herbert Morrison. In the first decisive ballot, Gaitskell beat Bevan into second place.

In 1956 Bevan agreed to serve as Shadow Foreign Secretary and in 1959 he became deputy leader and treasurer of the Labour Party. In December 1959 he was diagnosed with cancer of the stomach and on 6 July 1960 Aneurin Bevan died at his home in Buckinghamshire.

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