The Labour conference voted to drop its opposition to rearmament. London.A man presents Mr Aneurin (Nye) Bevan, Minister of Health, to a large gathering of National Federation of Building Trades Operatives - natural sound. Number 10, The Circle, was home to the Tredegar Medical Aid Society, which was used as a blueprint by Aneurin Bevan when he set up the National Health Service for the UK in 1948. Here you can learn about the life and work of Aneurin (Nye) Bevan (1897-1960), founder of Britain's National Health Service and one of the Labour movement's greatest orators and thinkers. Bevan also failed in a bid to become deputy leader, losing out to Jim Griffiths. Bevan contested the leadership against both Morrison and Labour right-winger Gaitskell, but it was Gaitskell who emerged victorious with more than half of the ballots. There was a particularly large increase in marginal tax rates for wealthy business owners. [111], Bevan dismayed many of his supporters when he suddenly reversed his opposition to nuclear weapons. [9][20] In keeping with his background, Bevan described his initial thoughts on the House of Commons as a shrine to "the most conservative of all religions ancestor worship". The new Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, appointed Bevan as Minister of Health, with a remit that also covered housing. [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. In February 1925, his father died of pneumoconiosis, an illness caused by the inhalation of coal dust. Born in a modest family, Bevan's exposure to poverty and deprivation gave him a first-hand experience of unfortunate condition of . He was elected head of his Miners' Lodge when aged 19, where he frequently railed against management. During World War Two, Bevan was one of the leaders of the left in the House of Commons. He wanted the war to be not just a fight against fascism but a war for socialism. With the support of the Miners' Federation, the case was judged as one of victimisation and the company was forced to re-employ him. Bevan was not good academically and was at a time repeated for a year in school. Aneurin Bevan was born on November 15, 1897, in Tredegar, Monmouthshire, to David Bevan and Phoebe nee Prothero. Updates? There was an outpouring of national mourning that followed his death, while the Daily Herald reported that some MPs were seen to be crying in Parliament. 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. [54], He believed that the Second World War would give Britain the opportunity to create "a new society". [69][70] The removal of the criteria of "working class" from local authority housing provision was seen as a first step, widening access to the council housing that was becoming an ever larger part of the UK housing stock and which made up a majority of new homes built after the war.