Slide 1: Born to a middle-class family in London
Attlee was born in Putney, Surrey (now part of London), the seventh of eight children. His father was Henry Attlee (1841–1908), a solicitor, and his mother was Ellen Bravery Watson (1847–1920).
Slide 2: Clement Attlee studied at Oxford University, and then trained as a lawyer after graduating with a he graduated with a Second Class Honours BA in Modern History in 1904. At uni he also enjoyed playing football for Fleet Town.
Slide 3: From 1906 to 1909, Attlee worked as manager of Haileybury House, a charitable club for working-class boys in Stepney in the East End of London run by his old school. Before hand his political views had been largely conservative but after seeing the poverty and deprivation of the slum children, he came to the view that private charity would never be sufficient to reduce poverty and he then became a supporter of socialism and he joined the Independent Labour Party in 1908, and became active in local politics. Slide 4: In 1909, he worked as a secretary for Beatrice Webb then a secretary for Toynbee Hall.[3] In 1911, he was employed by the UK Government as an "official explainer", touring the country to explain Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George's National Insurance Act. He spent the summer of that year touring Essex and Somerset on a bicycle, explaining the Act at public meetings.[3] Then he became a lecturer of Social administration at the London School of Economics, then when the first world war broke out in August 1914 he applied for an army officer commission. Slide 5:
During the First World War, Attlee was commissioned[9] and served with the South Lancashire Regiment in the Gallipoli Campaignin Turkey. After a period fighting in Gallipoli, he became ill with dysentery and was sent to a hospital in Malta to recover. His hospitalisation coincided with the Battle of Sari Bair, which saw a large number of his comrades killed.
The Gallipoli Campaign had been proposed by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. Attlee believed that it was a bold strategy, which could have been successful if it had been better implemented on the ground. This gave him an admiration for Churchill as a military strategist, which would make their working relationship in later years productive.[3]
He later served in the Mesopotamian Campaign where he was badly wounded at the Battle of Hanna and He was sent back to Britain to recover, and spent most of 1917 training soldiers. That year, he was promoted to the rank of Major,[10] leading him to be known as "Major Attlee" for the inter-war period.
After recovering from his injuries, he was sent to France in June 1918 to serve on the Western Front for the final months of the war.[3] His reputation as an effective, efficient leader gained him promotion to the rank of Major, a title that would stay with him beyond his military life. Slide 6: When he returned from the war, Attlee moved into politics, becoming mayor of the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney, one of London's poorest inner-city boroughs. The council enforced legal orders on house-owners to repair their property. It also appointed health visitors and sanitary inspectors, and reduced the infant mortality rate.
- In 1920, while mayor, he wrote his first book, The Social Worker, a book that attacked the idea that looking after the poor could be left to voluntary action.
First elected to Parliament in 1922 as the MP for Limehouse.
1924, Attlee was appointed as Under Secretary of State for War by the Labour Government.
During the Second World War, he was called into Winston Churchill’s coalition government and held the title of Deputy Prime Minister from 1942 to 1945.
Slide 7: leadership
He was a notoriously blunt and relatively quiet but His leadership style was apparently collective. Once the Prime Minister had let his Cabinet voice their opinions, he would quickly make decisions with military precision.
In the 1945 General Election Attlee led the Labour Party to its largest victory at the polls. During his six years in office he carried through a vigorous programme of reform. The Bank of England, the coal mines, civil aviation, cable and wireless services, gas, electricity, railways, road transport and steel were nationalised. The National Health Service was introduced and independence was granted to India in 1947. and heres the headline on the Indian times…
Slide 8: Although one of his brothers became a clergyman and one of his sisters a missionary, Attlee himself is usually regarded as an agnostic. In an interview he described himself as "incapable of religious feeling", saying that he believed in "the ethics of Christianity" but not "the mumbo-jumbo”. slide 9: Attlee met Violet Millar on a trip to Italy in 1921. They were engaged a few weeks after their return, and were later married at Christ Church, Hampstead on 10 January 1922.[3] It would come to be a devoted marriage, until her death in 1964. They had four children
Lady Janet Helen (born 1923) and she settled in the United States.
Lady Felicity Ann (1925–2007)
Martin Richard, Viscount Prestwood, later 2nd Earl Attlee (1927–91) and
Lady Alison Elizabeth (born 1930),