Attlee, Clement

Attlee, Clement (1883–1967) British prime minister at the end of World War II Clement Attlee replaced Winston Churchill as prime minister of the United Kingdom in July 1945, after leading his Labour Party out of the coalition with the Conservatives and achieving a large parliamentary majority. He served as prime minister until October 1951. Thus, Attlee was at the helm of British government as the war in the Pacific came to an end and during the immediate postwar years. Born in London to a well-to-do solicitor, Attlee received an education that culminated in a law degree from Oxford. He began practicing in 1905 but left the law in 1909. Beginning in 1905, Attlee became involved in volunteer work in the slums of London, an experience that profoundly liberalized his social and political outlook. His new-found socialist leanings prompted him to join the Fabian Society in 1907 and the Independent Labour Party in 1908. Except for service in World War I, he lived and worked in the London's slums for the next 15 years, becoming mayor of the Cockney borough of Stepney in 1919 and gaining election to Parliament as the member from Limehouse in 1922. He was named undersecretary of state for war in the first Labour government in 1924 and in 1927 was appointed to the Indian Statutory Commission. Attlee broke with the administration of Ramsay MacDonald after MacDonald brought the Labour Party into coalition with the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party in 1931. Attlee succeeded George Lansbury as leader of the Labour Party in 1935 and aligned the party in opposition to fascism, but was reluctant to embrace rearmament. Nevertheless, Attlee fully supported the British declaration of war against Germany in 1939. By refusing to join a coalition government under Conservative prime minister Neville Chamberlain, Attlee effectively forced Chamberlain's replacement by Winston Churchill, who appointed Attlee to his war cabinet as lord privy seal. In 1942, he was named deputy prime minister and secretary of state for Dominion affairs and in 1943 added lord president of the council to his duties. Attlee faithfully supported Churchill throughout the war, but, after victory over Germany, he led his party out of the coalition, presided over a major parliamentary sweep, and replaced Churchill as prime minister in July. Attaining the prime minister's post at the end of the war, Attlee had virtually no influence over Attlee, Clement 133 the course of combat. However, he was a primary architect of postwar Britain and oversaw the nationalization of the coal, railways, gas, and electricity industries as well as the creation of the National Health Service, among other social reforms. Despite his leftward leanings, Attlee was a strong proponent of defense and an opponent of Soviet expansion. Accordingly, he was a prime mover behind the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949 and readily committed British troops to the Korean War in 1950. While he oversaw the beginning of the end of the British Empire, including the creation of an independent India in 1947, Attlee also presided over a substantial rearmament program. After the Labour Party's defeat in 1955, Attlee resigned as party leader, was created an earl, and elevated to the House of Lords, in which he served until his death in 1967.