Ernie Bevin 1881 - 1951
October 2020
Ernest “Ernie” Bevin (9 March 1881 – 14 April 1951) was a British statesman, trade union leader, and Labour politician. He co-founded the powerful Transport and General Workers Union (also known as the TGWU or the T&G) and he served as its general secretary in the years 1922–1940. This union was the forerunner to UNITE. In the war-time coalition government Bevin was appointed as the Minister of Labour. He succeeded in maximising the British labour supply, for both the armed services and domestic industrial production, with a minimum of strikes and disruption. His most important role came as Foreign Secretary in the post-war Labour government from 1945–1951. He gained American financial support, strongly opposed Communism, and aided in the creation of NATO. Bevin's tenure also saw the end of the Mandate of Palestine and the creation of the State of Israel. His biographer, Alan Bullock, said that Bevin "stands as the last of the line of foreign secretaries in the tradition created by Castlereagh, Canning and Palmerston in the first half of the 19th century", and that due to the reduction in British power he has no successors.
Early life Bevin was born into poverty in Winsford, Somerset in 1881. He was orphaned by the age of eight after his mother died. He never met his father – his parents had separated before his brith. After leaving school at the age of 11, he became a farm labourer before joining his brothers in Bristol where he found work as a lorry driver and joined the Bristol Socialist Society. He became interested in Nonconformist religion and for a while was a Baptist lay preacher.
In 1906 Bevin married Florence Townley, daughter of a wine taster at a Bristol wine merchants. They had one child, a daughter, Queenie (1914–2000). Florence Bevin (died 1968) was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1952.
In 1908 Bevin was the Secretary of the Right to Work Committee. He led a silent demonstration of some 400 unemployed men into a service in Bristol Cathedral. The stunt shocked the City’s establishment and the City Council agreed to a series of public works including the construction of the lake in Eastville Park. The work at Eastville Park engaged 300 men for 17 weeks. The wage bill was estimated at £4,000. The lake is known locally as ‘Bevin’s Lake’.
'Bevin's Lake' in Eastville Park then
Add PHOTO HERE
and now (Sept 2020). The swans in this photo may be the descendants of those in the one above.
And this boat might even be the boat in the 1st photo - named in honour of Ernie himself.
Bevin joined the Dockers' Union and in 1914 he became a national organiser for the union. He joined the Labour Party and attempted unsuccessfully to become the MP for Bristol Central in the 1918 general election.
Bevin was a physically large man, strong and by the time of his political prominence very heavy. He spoke with a strong West Country accent, so much so that on one occasion listeners at Cabinet had difficulty in deciding whether he was talking about "Hugh and Nye (Gaitskell and Bevan)" or "you and I". He 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.
1920 Docks Inquiry “I say that if captains of industry cannot organise their concerns so as to give Labour a living wage, then they should resign from their captaincy of industry” - Ernest Bevin, Feb 1920
As national organiser for the Dock, Wharf, Riverside and General Labourers’ Union, Ernie Bevin presented the workers’ case for a pay increase at the Docks Inquiry in 1920. This was chaired by the judge Lord Shaw. The ‘Inquiry into Wages Rates and Conditions of Men Engaged in Dock and Waterside Labour’ was held over a two-week period in the Royal Courts of Justice, London. It laid bare the “great human tragedy of men and women fighting year in and year out against the terrible economic conditions with which they have been surrounded”.
Bevin became a national figure during the presentation of the case. With no legal training and little time to prepare he forcefully and imaginatively put the arguments to the court, closely watched by the media. His initial speech lasted 11 hours! The employers claimed that the dockers could could live adequately on the wages they were receiving. Sir Lyndon Macassey had submitted a weekly family budget for £3 17shillings which was well below Bevin’s budget. Bevin went to Canning Town market and purchased food to the amounts allocated in Macassey’s budget. He translated his purchases to a daily budget for a household of five. In court he produced plates of food to show how poor the offer was. News photos of the derisory quantities of food shocked the nation.
The Caption to this photo read: “NOVEL SCENE AT THE LAW COURTS – At the Docker’s Inquiry yesterday, Mr. E. Bevin, the ‘Dockers’ K.C.,’ exhibited replicas of the meals actually obtained by his clients to-day and what they should receive. The picture shows Mr. Bevin and Mr. Ben Tillett arranging the specimens.”
These photographs appeared in half a dozen newspapers and “were worth volumes of statistics in their effect on public opinion”.
Beyond pay and conditions, the trade unions’ call for the dignity of the working class was put “before the conscience of England”. The Inquiry published their report on 20 March 1920 and recommended a 44-hour week and national rate of 16 shillings a day (80p in modern money). Lord Shaw also recommended the establishment of the National Joint Council for Dock Labour as the mechanism for nation-wide collective bargaining.
For his part in representing the dockers, the press dubbed Bevin the “Docker’s KC” (King’s Counsel is a lawyer or legal advocate).
The T&G and Labour When Ben Tillett and Harry Gosling formed the National Transport Workers' Federation (NTWF) Bevin was elected to its executive. By 1921 over 32 separate unions had joined together to form the Transport & General Workers Union (TGWU or T&G). This soon became Britain’s largest trade union. It was a monumental achievement as it required bringing together and holding together workers from a vast range of jobs into a single, integrated organisation.
As one of the founding leaders of the T&G, Bevin was elected general secretary, a post he was to hold for the next nineteen years. As the union's general secretary, he became one of the country's leading labour leaders, and their strongest advocate within the Labour Party. The link between the trade unions and the Labour Party was reflected in 1928 with the opening of Transport House in Smith Square, London. This building was the headquarters of the Transport & General Workers Union, the Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party. Bevin was also a member of the General Council of the Trade Union Congress between 1925 and 1940.
Bevin was considered to be a moderate by more militant trade unionists although, politically he was on the right-wing of the Labour Party and strongly opposed to communism. He played an important role in negotiating the TGWU's withdrawal from the General Strike in 1926.
Bevin was defeated when he represented the Labour Party at Gateshead in the 1931 general election.
Fascism and Communism Bevin was a firm opponent of fascism and of British appeasement of the fascist powers. In 1935, the Labour Party conference discussed the issue of imposing sanctions on Italy for her recent invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia). During the debate, George Lansbury, the Labour Leader, appealed for peaceful means to be employed to resolve the issue. After Lansbury sat down Bevin rose and delivered a personal attack on Lansbury - "It is placing the Executive and the movement in an absolutely wrong position to be hawking your conscience around from body to body asking to be told what to do with it”. The vote was taken and the sanctions were supported by a massive majority which forced Lansbury to resign. He was replaced as leader by his deputy Clem Attlee.
In 1936 the Conservative government feared the spread of communism from the Soviet Union to the rest of Europe. Stanley Baldwin, the British prime minister, shared this concern and was sympathetic to the military uprising in Spain against the left-wing Popular Front government.
Leon Blum, the prime minister of the Popular Front government in France, initially agreed to send aircraft and artillery to help the Republican Army in Spain. However, after coming under pressure from Stanley Baldwin and Anthony Eden in Britain, and more right-wing members of his own cabinet, Blum changed his mind.
In the House of Commons on 29th October 1936, Philip Noel-Baker, Clem Attlee and Arthur Greenwood argued against the government policy of Non-Intervention in Spain. As Noel-Baker pointed out: "We protest with all our power against the sham, the hypocritical sham, that it now appears to be."
Ernie Bevin
Bevin was a supporter of the Popular Front government in Spain and in August 1936 made a speech where he praised "the heroic struggle being carried on by the workers of Spain to save their democratic regime." He encouraged young men to join the International Brigades and this included the TGWU shop steward, Jack Jones. However, Bevin was against working with the Communist Party of Great Britain.
Minister of Labour 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. In 1938, for instance, Bevin helped to instigate a successful campaign by the TUC to extend paid holidays to a wider proportion of the workforce. This culminated in the Holidays with Pay Act of 1938, which extended entitlement to paid holidays to about 11 million workers by June 1939.
Churchill was impressed by Bevin's opposition to trade-union pacifism and his appetite for work. In May 1940 Churchill invited Bevin to become Minister of Labour in the coalition government. The following month Bevin won a by-election at Wandsworth and joined the House of Commons. Bevin became one of the most significant members of Churchill's war cabinet and successfully achieved mobilization of Britain's workforce.
Addressing the workforce in 1940, Bevin said “I must interfere with your pleasures and your leisure. The coming weeks are vital…Not a minute of time or an ounce of material must be wasted, as such loss may mean the loss of some of our precious lads.”
During the war Bevin was responsible for diverting nearly 48,000 military conscripts to work in the coal industry. These workers became known as the Bevin Boys. The initiative prevented Britain running out of coal which was then an essential fuel.
Bevin transformed Britain’s workforce for the war effort. By 1944, a third of the civilian population were engaged in war work, including over 7,000,000 women. He used his position to secure significant improvements in pay and conditions for working-class people although he was against equal pay for the women workers. Bevin also drew up the demobilisation scheme that ultimately returned millions of military personnel and civilian war workers into the peacetime economy.
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Bevin remained Minister of Labour until the 1945 general election in which the Labour Party won a landslide victory. The new prime minister, Clem Attlee, appointed Bevin as his Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Bevin played an important role in the acceptance of the Marshall Plan, the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and Britain's decision to develop nuclear weapons.
The Marshall Plan In 1945 Britain was virtually bankrupt as a result of the war. In an attempt to remain a global power, it was still maintaining a huge air force and conscript army. In December 1945, Bevin played a key role in securing a low-interest $3.75 billion loan from the U.S. This was seen as the only real alternative to national bankruptcy; Bevin had asked originally for $5 billion.
The cost of rebuilding necessitated austerity at home. Additional funds (that did not have to be repaid) came from the Marshall Plan. In June 1947, US Secretary of State, George Marshall, had proposed a European Recovery Programme ERP (which became known as the Marshall Plan).
Ernest Bevin (left) with Clem Attlee in 1945
In April 1948, $980 million became available to Britain under the Marshall Plan which was administered by the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC). Britain was required to modernise its business practices and remove trade barriers. In December, 1950, Marshall Plan aid to Britain ended.
NATO Bevin had looked for ways to bring western Europe together in a military alliance. He had been eager to sign the Brussels Pact in 1948. This drew Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg into an arrangement for collective security and opened the way for the formation of NATO. In April 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed by Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and the United States. NATO was primarily created as a defensive measure against Soviet expansion. It also helped bring its members closer together and enabled them to modernize their forces along parallel lines.
NATO and the Marshall Plan for aid to post-war Europe were two of the key institutions of the post-war world. They were in considerable part the result of Bevin's efforts during these years. In ways some of Bevin’s policies were not that much different from that of the Conservatives ("Hasn't Anthony Eden grown fat?" as wags had it), and this was a source of frustration to some backbench Labour MPs. In 1947 Michael Foot, Ian Mikardo and Richard Crossman issued a “Keep Left” document advocating a more Left-Wing foreign policy.
The Bomb Attlee and Bevin worked together on the decision to produce a British atomic bomb, despite opposition from inside the Labour Party. In January 1946, a Cabinet Committee agreed to make preparations for a British nuclear weapons programme. This was decided despite objections from ministers like Hugh Dalton (Chancellor of the Exchequer) and Sir Stafford Cripps (President of the Board of Trade) who opposed the bomb on grounds of cost.
Bevin told the committee in October 1946, that 'We've got to have this thing over here whatever it costs … We've got to have the bloody Union Jack flying on top of it.' It was a matter of both prestige and national security. The final decision to construct the bomb was taken in secret by a small Cabinet committee which did not include Dalton or Cripps.
In May 1948, the Minister of Defence, A. V. Alexander, revealed to the Commons that Britain was building its own nuclear weapon.
India and Pakistan Bevin was part of the Cabinet which approved a speedy British withdrawal from India. In August 1947, India and Pakistan became independent.
The Soviet Union Bevin remained a determined anti-communist, and critic of the Soviet Union. During the negotiations in Paris for the peace treaty of World War II, the Russian diplomat Vladimir Erofeev met Bevin. He was appalled by his behaviour, which he judged impolite and undiplomatic. According to Erofeev, at one meeting Bevin said that he saw no difference between Russia and Nazi Germany; he took his words back only when the Soviet foreign minister, Molotov, (famous for his cocktails) was on the verge of walking out.
In The American Age: United States Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad, Walter LaFeber relates that at a conference held in 1946, the Soviet foreign minister, Molotov repeatedly attacked British proposals whilst defending Soviet policies. In total frustration, Bevin stood up and lurched towards the minister whilst shouting "I've had enough of this I 'ave!' before being restrained by security.
Israel The Mandate of Palestine (for Britain to administer the territory) ended during the period when Bevin was Foreign Secretary and the State of Israel was created. Bevin failed to secure the stated British objectives in this area of foreign policy, which included a peaceful settlement of the situation and the avoidance of involuntary population transfers.
The negotiations for the ending of the Mandate and creation of a State of Israel did not go smoothly. At the London Conference in January 1947, the Jewish negotiators were only prepared to accept partition while the Arab negotiators would only accept a unitary state (which would automatically have had an Arab majority). Neither would accept limited autonomy under British rule. When no agreement could be reached, Bevin threatened to hand the problem over to the United Nations. The threat failed to move either side. The Jewish representatives believed that Bevin was bluffing and the Arabs believed that their cause would prevail before the General Assembly. Bevin accordingly announced that he would "ask the UN to take the Palestine question into consideration." A week later, the strategic logic of Britain retaining a presence in Palestine was removed when the intention to withdraw from India in August of that year was announced.
Then in February 1947 the Attlee government made a public declaration that Britain's Mandate in Palestine had become "unworkable." This formalised the decision to allow the United Nations to dictate the future of Palestine. The UN decided on a partition plan. Bevin commented: "The majority proposal is so manifestly unjust to the Arabs that it is difficult to see how we could reconcile it with our conscience."
The area had a history of difficulties. Attacks on British administrators and troops had been carried out by the more extreme of the Jewish militant groups which had infuriated Bevin. In July 1946, the King David Hotel in Jerusalem had been bombed in a terrorist attack carried out by the militant right-wing Zionist underground organization, the Irgun. The British administrative headquarters for Palestine had been housed in the southern wing of the hotel during the Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine. 91 people of various nationalities were killed, and 46 were injured. A security zone had been put up in Jerusalem.
The security zone in Jerusalem was dubbed "Bevingrad" during Bevin's term in the Foreign Office
In January 1948, Bevin signed the Portsmouth Treaty with Iraq. According to the Iraqi foreign minister Muhammad Fadhel al-Jamali, this 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.
During the remainder of the Mandate, fighting between the Jewish and Arab communities intensified. The end of the Mandate and Britain's final withdrawal from Palestine was marked by the Israeli Declaration of Independence and the start of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, when five Arab states intervened in the inter-communal fighting. The Arab armies were led by Jordan, the most effective state, whose military forces were trained and led by British officers.
Territory had been assigned by the UN for the creation of a Jewish state. The War ended in 1949 with Israel not only in control of this territory, but also in control of much of the Mandate territory which had been assigned by the UN for the creation of an Arab state. The remainder was divided between Jordan and Egypt. An Israeli state had been formed, but hundreds of thousands of, overwhelmingly Arab, civilians had become displaced.
Although people can reasonably argue that this was hardly a successful outcome, it is difficult to know what Bevin or anybody else (remember the UN took over the Partition plan) could have done to improve the whole affair. The Jews and Arabs had been arguing over Jerusalem and what is now Israel for centuries and unfortunately, they still are.
Bevin and Morrison in the Cabinet The Labour government of 1945 had many people in it who had gained experience in office during the War. Party leader Clem Attlee was Prime Minister. He appointed Ernie Bevin as Foreign Secretary, Hugh Dalton as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Herbert Morrison as Deputy prime minister and Leader of the House of Commons, Sir Stafford Cripps as President of the Board of Trade, Hugh Gaitskell to replace Cripps as Chancellor in 1950, Nye Bevan as Minister for Health and (future prime minister) Harold Wilson as President of the Board of Trade in 1947. The most notable of the few female members of the government was Ellen Wilkinson, who was Minister for education until her early death in 1947.
They were all talented and individual characters. However, great heroes do not always tolerate other heroes. And this was certainly the case with Ernie Bevin and Herbert Morrison who was Bevin's main rival in the Labour cabinet. In his memoirs Morrison claims that: "Bevin, in character and physique a big man, may sometimes have been guilty of treating all opponents as formidable ones, bringing in the full weight of his attack on a target hardly worthy of it. Thus, a charge of bullying would sometimes be justified."
Bevin disliked Morrison. A fellow minister, Harold Wilson, explained: "Ernie Bevin could not stand Herbert Morrison, who had been a City boss when Bevin had been head of one of the biggest unions and the two had clashed. I would think that Bevin declared war on Morrison in the 1930s and that they were never going to come together. You could see his hackles rise every time, especially if Morrison tried to encroach on foreign affairs."
A fellow MP, Robert Boothby tells the story of how the two men loathed each other. When a MP said to Bevin that "Morrison was his own worst enemy", he replied, "Not while I'm alive he ain't."
Ernie Bevin (left) and Herbert Morrison
Final Days In March 1951, with his health failing, Bevin reluctantly allowed himself to be moved to become Lord Privy Seal. "I am neither a Lord, nor a Privy, nor a Seal", he is said to have commented. Up until that time, he had turned down every honour – and he was offered a lot. He never fell for the embrace of the establishment.
He died on 14th April 1951, still holding the key to his red box. His ashes are buried in Westminster Abbey.
An assessment Bevin was and remains one of the giants of the labour and trade union movement. The jobs he held during his lifetime included: -
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1914 – National organiser for the Dockers’ Union
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1922-1945 – First general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union
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1925-1940 – Member of the TUC General Council
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1937 – President of the TUC
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1940-1950 –MP for Wandsworth Central
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1940-1945 – Minister of Labour and National Service
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1945-1951 – Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
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1950 – MP for Woolwich East
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1951 – Lord Privy Seal
Arguably any one of these roles would have been enough for any single person. However, Bevin was a talented and ambitious man and not simply ambitious for himself. He wanted to change things for the better for ordinary working people. And he did.
Opinions are divided over Bevin as to whether he was one of the great men in British diplomatic history. Some see him as a Minister who dominated foreign policy, who led the Foreign Office by strength of character and clarity of vision, and who carried through on his grand design for Britain's revised role in world affairs, especially by his support for NATO and close alliance with the United States. Others see him more as a narrow-minded anti-Communist whose foreign policy was really decided by the Foreign Office officials and who lost the opportunity to make Britain a leader in European affairs thus leaving Britain to become more dependent on America.
Bust of Bevin in Southwark, South London
Whatever you may think of him, and Bevin did have his faults, he helped to form one of the most important trade unions in history, won a magnificent victory at the Docks Inquiry, successfully mobilised the British workforce throughout the war-time efforts and was a major player in arguably the greatest Labour government in the movement’s history.
There is no doubt that Bevin also had flaws. He was ambitious and he possessed something of a ruthless streak in pursuit of his aims. Those aims included obtaining better working conditions for dockers, stopping George Lansbury in his tracks when debating at conference over imposing sanctions and obtaining the bomb for Britain. Like all great people he was a mixed bag of great character and determination with some flaws. As a conclusion I will let four UK prime ministers have the final say in summing him up.
David Lloyd George (Liberal PM 1916-1922) spoke of Bevin in 1919: “He is a powerful fellow, with a bull neck and a huge voice – a born leader…if there is trouble, mark my words! You will hear more of Bevin!”
Winston Churchill (Conservative PM 1940-1945 and 1951-1955 ), said that Bevin was by 'far the most distinguished man that the Labour Party have thrown up in my time'.
Harold Wilson (Labour PM 1964-1970 and 1974- 1976), argued that Clem Attlee relied heavily on Bevin during his six years in power: "Ernie sat opposite the Prime Minister at the Long Cabinet table. If a few ministers were talking more than they needed to, and Bevin wanted to get in, he just signalled across. One of the problems in government is whom you put on the various Cabinet sub-committees and who you leave off. If my memory is correct, I do not think Attlee had any sub-committee of which Bevin was not a member, even though it might not in any way be concerned with foreign affairs. The two used to meet often, particularly when a difficult Cabinet meeting was coming up. I do not remember a single occasion when the two disagreed in Cabinet, with Ernie acting as the bulldozer whenever necessary."
And the final word goes to Clem Attlee (PM 1945-1951) who greatly valued Bevin’s help and support during the post-war Labour government. When Stafford Cripps died in 1952 (the year after Bevin died) Attlee was invited by the BBC to broadcast a tribute to him. Attlee was looked after by announcer Frank Phillips. After the broadcast, Phillips took Attlee to the hospitality room for a drink and said:
"I suppose you will miss Sir Stafford, sir."
Attlee fixed him with his eye: "Did you know Ernie Bevin?"
"I have met him, sir," Phillips replied.
"There's the man I miss."
Solidarity
Brian Madican
October 2020
Additional information
To listen to a 30 minute BBC programme (available until 30 August 2021) on Ernie Bevin go to https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000m5mg
More information about the 1920 Docks Inquiry can be found at:
More information about the founding of the T&G can be found at: https://www.madsmeds.org/tg-history-part-1 and at: https://www.madsmeds.org/t-g-history-part-2
More information about the background history of the trade union movement between 1915 – 45 can be found at: https://www.madsmeds.org/trade-union-history-part-6
More information about the achievements of the 1945-51 Labour government can be found at:
https://www.madsmeds.org/trade-union-history-part-7
More information about Clem Attlee and George Lansbury can be found at: https://www.madsmeds.org/leading-labour-lives
