Aneurin Bevan Biography

Birth of Aneurin Bevan

Birth of Aneurin Bevan in Tredegar, Monmouthshire.

Leaves school at thirteen and enters mining work.

Begins work at Ty-Trist Colliery.

Enters the South Wales labour movement through mining employment.

Begins working underground at Ty-Trist Colliery.

Joins the South Wales Miners Federation as a young miner.

Develops political views in the South Wales coalfield.

Sees local mutual medical provision in Tredegar.

Builds experience of union conflict and pit politics.

Studies at Central Labour College with union sponsorship.

Returns to South Wales after labour college training.

Works in miners' politics and local Labour organisation.

Becomes prominent in Tredegar Labour politics.

Loses his father after illness linked to mining work.

Supports miners during the General Strike and lockout.

Wins election to Monmouthshire County Council.

Enters Parliament as a young left-wing Labour MP.

Elected Member of Parliament for Ebbw Vale, 1929-60

Wins Ebbw Vale for Labour at the general election.

Attacks government policy on unemployment and poverty.

One of just 52 Labour MPs elected to Parliament

Keeps Ebbw Vale as Labour suffers national defeat.

Regains his county council seat after losing it in 1931.

Draws on Tredegar medical aid experience in his health politics.

Uses Tredegar medical aid as evidence for health reform.

Emerges as a forceful critic of Conservative policy.

Supports anti-fascist causes during the Spanish Civil War.

Helps launch Tribune as a socialist weekly.

Opposes appeasement of fascist dictatorships.

Is expelled temporarily from the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Is readmitted to the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Remains outside the wartime coalition government.

Criticises wartime government failures from the Labour left.

Warns against authoritarian habits during wartime emergency.

Supports ambitious implementation of postwar social reform.

Presses ministers to act more boldly on Beveridge.

Presses for more ambitious social and health reform.

Advocates a comprehensive and publicly planned health service.

Criticises cautious coalition health service proposals.

Building Materials and Housing Act 1945 helps control building materials and housing reconstruction

Moves toward national control of hospitals.

Begins postwar housing reconstruction work.

Housing Temporary Accommodation Act 1945 supports temporary housing for people affected by wartime shortages

Rejects full local authority control of hospitals.

Begins difficult negotiations with doctors and consultants.

Shapes Cabinet plans for a national health service.

Begins to found the NHS

Insists the service should cover the whole population.

Water Act 1945 reorganises water supply powers and supports public planning of water resources

Retains Ebbw Vale as Labour wins nationally.

Takes responsibility for creating the National Health Service.

Takes responsibility for housing as Minister of Health.

Appointed Minister of Health in Attlee's government.

Becomes Minister of Health in Attlee's government.

Faces organised British Medical Association opposition.

Allows consultants to retain private practice rights.

Furnished Houses Rent Control Act 1946 controls rents for furnished lettings and creates tribunal procedures

Faces strong opposition from general practitioners.

Bevan publishes the NHS Bill

Insists hospitals should transfer to public ownership.

Housing Financial and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1946 supports housing subsidies and postwar construction

National Health Service Act 1946 establishes a comprehensive health service for England and Wales

Bevan publishes the NHS Bill

During the committee stage of the Bill Bevan reveals that teaching hospitals will retain their autonomy. Bevan publishes the NHS Bill

Accepts special arrangements for teaching hospitals.

Builds the service around hospitals, family doctors and local health duties.

Proposes transferring hospitals to national ownership.

Introduces the National Health Service Bill.

Introduces the National Health Service Bill to Parliament.

Secures housing subsidies to support local authority building.

Defends the National Health Service Bill at second reading.

The National Health Service Act receives Royal Assent.

Secures Royal Assent for the National Health Service Act.

Fixes 5 July 1948 as the launch date for the NHS.

Prepares the service for launch on 5 July 1948.

Negotiates terms for hospital consultants within the NHS.

Prepares dental services for entry into the NHS.

Plans executive councils for family practitioner services.

Supports health centres but faces cost and staffing limits.

Prepares voluntary and municipal hospitals for transfer.

Faces pressure over the pace of postwar housing construction.

Assigns local health authorities duties for community services.

Prepares regulations for NHS administration.

Prepares ophthalmic services for free treatment at launch.

Plans pharmaceutical services free at the point of use.

Uses temporary and prefabricated housing to ease shortages.

Plans regional hospital boards for England and Wales.

Integrates specialist hospital services into national planning.

Local Government Act 1948 changes local government finance and Exchequer grant arrangements

Offers concessions to bring doctors into the new service.

Nurseries and Child-Minders Regulation Act 1948 regulates nurseries and child minding

Offers concessions to secure medical profession participation.

Secures broad general practitioner participation before launch.

Explains the new service to households before Appointed Day.

Promotes the new service before launch day.

Ambulance provision forms part of the new public service.

Dental treatment becomes available through the NHS.

Executive councils begin managing family practitioner services.

Brings most family doctors into the health service.

Receives symbolic hospital keys at Park Hospital.

Establishes services free at the point of delivery.

General practice enters the new service after difficult negotiations.

Launches a service mainly funded through general taxation.

Oversees regional hospital boards at launch.

Consultants join the NHS while retaining private practice rights.

free medical treatment for the entire population from the cradle to the grave. Bevan opens the NHS, 90% of doctors sign up

Hospitals transfer into the new national service.

Local authorities begin new community health duties.

Maternity care is brought into the health service framework.

Mental hospitals transfer into the national hospital system.

By NHS Appointed Day, July 5, 1948, 90% of doctors had signed up for the new service. Bevan opens one of the world's first and most comprehensive health services to the British people

Ends doctors' professional independence and their right to buy or sell general practices. Charity hospitals and former poor law hospitals run by local authorities are nationalised.

The National Health Service begins across Britain.

The new service is financed mainly from taxation.

Bevan opens the NHS at Park Hospital, Manchester; about 90 percent of doctors have signed up.

Launches the NHS at Park Hospital near Manchester.

Marks the opening of the health service at Park Hospital.

Launches a service universal and free at the point of use.

Optical treatment becomes available through the NHS.

Charity hospitals and former poor law hospitals run by local authorities are nationalised

Former poor law hospitals become part of the NHS.

Prescriptions are supplied free under the new service.

Regional hospital boards begin administering hospital services.

Teaching hospitals receive special boards of governors.

Tuberculosis services are absorbed into the new health system.

Voluntary hospitals transfer into the national hospital service.

Defends the government's housing record against criticism.

Faces higher than expected demand and rising NHS expenditure.

Confronts high demand for dental, optical and hospital services.

Nurses Act 1949 reforms nursing registration and professional regulation

Housing Act 1950 consolidates housing law and local authority housing powers

Handles labour questions during rearmament pressure.

Appointed Minister of Labour

Becomes Minister of Labour after the 1950 election.

Prepares essays later published as In Place of Fear.

Resigns in protest against cuts on social services

Resigns because Labour introduces NHS charges

Opposes health charges linked to rearmament spending.

Resigns and becomes the focus of Labour left opposition.

Resigns in protest over health charges and rearmament spending.

Becomes the central figure of the Labour left.

Publishes In Place of Fear.

Publishes In Place of Fear, setting out his socialist politics.

Influences Labour left activists and MPs.

Challenges party leadership on rearmament and socialism.

Opposes Labour leadership support for German rearmament.

Attlee gets Parliamentary Labour Party support for German rearmament, and Bevan resigns from the Shadow Cabinet

Resigns from the Shadow Cabinet over German rearmament.

Challenges unsuccessfully for the leadership of the Labour Party, wins 70 votes

Unsuccessfully stands for the Party leadership, defeated in the first round

Has the party whip withdrawn because of opposition to Attlee's support for the H-bomb

Regains party standing after internal Labour conflict.

Loses the Labour leadership contest to Hugh Gaitskell.

Becomes Shadow Foreign Secretary under Gaitskell.

Appointed Shadow Foreign Secretary of the Labour Party

Opposes the British and French intervention in Egypt.

Denounces the intervention before a mass anti-war crowd.

Speaks against the Suez intervention at Trafalgar Square.

Addresses a large anti-war demonstration against Suez.

Condemns the Suez intervention at a mass rally.

Rejects unilateral nuclear disarmament at Labour Party conference.

Rejects unilateral nuclear disarmament at Labour conference.

Warns against going naked into the conference chamber.

Supports alliance policy while criticising nuclear strategy.

Defends Clause IV from Gaitskell's attempt to revise Labour's constitution.

Defends Labour's Clause IV against revision.

Is elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.

Withdraws from public life as illness worsens.

Dies after a long political career.

Death of Aneurin Bevan.

Bevanite and Atlanticist arguments continue to shape Labour debate about nuclear weapons and alliance policy