He was a strong critic of the arming policy the British government adopted during the rise of Hitler. He often quoted an 1855 passage from Karl Marx that was published in The New York Times in 1865: "The redeeming feature of war is that it puts a nation to the test. Some historians have questioned how influential the college was on his political development. Aneurin Bevan (1897-1960) Atheism Healthcare Politics Social Reform He was a great humanist whose religion lay in loving his fellow men and trying to serve them. [44] Churchill was a frequent target of Bevan's, who already held a dislike of him following his intervention in the Tonypandy riots and the 1926 United Kingdom general strike which Bevan considered heavy handed. In 1928, Bevan won a seat on Monmouthshire County Council in the Tredegar Central Division. The manager of the colliery found an excuse to have him dismissed; however, with the support of the Miners Federation, Bevans case was judged to be one of victimisation and the company was forced to re-employ him. The memorial stones of Aneurin Bevan in Tredegar, 2011. [119] He checked into the Royal Free Hospital in London on 27 December 1959 to undergo surgery for an ulcer, but malignant stomach cancer was discovered instead in a major operation two days later. [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. His remains were cremated at Gwent Crematorium in Croesyceiliog in a private family ceremony. Aneurin Bevan - Former Secretary of State for Health, Facts, Childhood Macmillan noted that despite being a "controversial figure" during his career, Bevan's death had seen an outpouring of genuine "admiration and affection". KS2 All About Aneurin Bevan PowerPoint (teacher made) - Twinkl The new Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, appointed Bevan as Minister of Health, with a remit that also covered housing. 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. [98], Out of office, Bevan soon exacerbated the split within the Labour Party between the right and the left which weakened the party in the 1950s. Photo by Kaihsu Tai on 2005-07-07 Wikimedia Commons. He read Marxism at the college and was a brief follower of Noah Ablett,[11][12] developing his left-wing political outlook. Bevan appeared in court but was cleared when he produced confirmation that he suffered from nystagmus. [14], Upon returning home in 1921, he found that the Tredegar Iron and Coal Company refused to re-employ him. Born into a working class family in Monmouthshire, Wales, Bevan worked in a coal mine as a teenager, and it was through a miners union that he first became interested in politics. [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". 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. A poll in 2013 conducted on behalf of British Future found that the NHS was more popular then than at its creation, and was more popular than the monarchy, BBC and British Armed Forces. [57][58] These reforms were achieved in the face of great financial difficulty following the war. 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]. The facts, figures and quotes that shaped the history of the National Health Service . His contribution to the Welfare State has been immense. He became minister of labour in January 1951 but resigned from the government the following April in protest against the rearmament program, which necessitated sharp cutbacks in social expenditures. Aneurin had a stammer as a child which he would later overcome and be recognised as a great public speaker. He was no calculating machine. You can also find out more about the Bevan Society, our activities and programme of lectures. Bevan, however, became an atheist. [19] With his success in 1928, he was picked as the Labour Party candidate for Ebbw Vale (displacing the sitting MP Evan Davies),[20] and easily held the seat at the 1929 General Election. Bevan gained more than twice the votes of Liberal candidate William Griffiths, receiving 20,000 votes to Griffiths' 8,000. We are going to Tredegar-ise you. "[55] At the beginning of the 1945 general election campaign, Bevan told his audience that his goal was to eliminate any opposition to the Labour programme: "We have been the dreamers, we have been the sufferers, now we are the builders. Why Did Shakespeare Paint Richard III as a Villain? Aneurin Bevan. Bevanism was opposed by the Gaitskellites, moderate social democrats within the party. History Hit brings you the stories that shaped the world through our award winning podcast network and an online history channel. Bevan accused the government of a "policy of bankruptcy and despair",[111] stating at the Trafalgar rally: We are stronger than Egypt but there are other countries stronger than us. The latter sale and purchase of goodwill often placed new entrants to the GP profession under large amounts of debt. Aneurin Bevan was born on November 15, 1897, in Tredegar in Wales. Photo by Jeremy Segrott from Cardiff, Wales, UK Wikimedia Commons. 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. In 1959, Bevan was elected deputy leader of the Labour Party, although he was already suffering from terminal cancer. Bevan was named Minister of Labour in 1951, but resigned after two months in office, when the Attlee government proposed the introduction of prescription charges for dental and vision care and decided to transfer funds from the National Insurance Fund to pay for rearmament. His parents had ten children togetherfour died in infancy and one died at the age of eight. [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"). In 1959, he was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and held the post for a year until his death from stomach cancer at the age of 62. History Hit Launches on Comcasts Entertainment Platforms in the US. "[62] Government income was increased for the welfare state expenditure by a large increase in marginal tax rates for wealthy business owners in particular, as part of what the Labour government largely saw as the redistribution of the wealth created by the working-class from the owners of large-scale industry to the workers. In short Hitler is to rule Britain by proxy. It was around this time that he first "reject[ed] his chapel upbringing" and became an atheist. [1] The town was situated in the South Wales Valleys and was on the northern edge of the South Wales coalfield. 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. [100] In April 1954, Bevan resigned from the Parliamentary Labour Party, having been rebuked by Attlee after accusing the Labour leader of surrendering to American pressure over a proposed multi-national defence organisation in Asia and the Pacific. He died on 6 July 1960. He was not a cold-blooded rationalist. Bevan called for the nationalisation of the coal industry and advocated the opening of a Second Front in Western Europe to help the Soviet Union in its fight with Germany. He knelt reverently in respect to a friend or friend's faith, but he never pretended to be anything other than what he was, a humanist. It was Aneurin Bevan, the Minister of Health in the UK from 1945 to 1951, who started the NHS in 1948. [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". London.A man presents Mr Aneurin (Nye) Bevan, Minister of Health, to a large gathering of National Federation of Building Trades Operatives - natural sound. Aneurin Bevan was born on 15 November 1897 at 32 Charles Street in Tredegar, Monmouthshire, a working-class mining town, where an estimated 90 per cent of the town's inhabitants relied on the local mines for employment. He is also known for his wider contribution to the founding of the British welfare state. However, Attlee commented that Bevan was "starting with me with a clean sheet" following his appointment. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. David Bevan was born in Tredegar but his family had originally hailed from Carmarthenshire, and he followed his own father into the mines, starting work at 5:30am each day and returning home late in the evening.