Gaitskell, Hugh Todd Naylor

Gaitskell, Hugh Todd Naylor (1906-1963), British politician, born in London on April 9, 1906. Educated at Winchester College and Oxford University, he became a socialist during the General Strike of 1926, after which he joined the Workers' Educational Association, lecturing Nottinghamshire miners on economics. In 1938 he was appointed Reader in Political Economy at the University of London, and published Money in Everyday Life in 1939. After working in various ministries during World War II, he was elected Member of Parliament for Leeds South in 1945. His rise was rapid in the post-war Labour Government led by Clement Attlee: Minister of Fuel and Power (1947), Minister of Economic Affairs (1950), and, between 1950 and the Conservative victory in 1951, the youngest Chancellor of the Exchequer for over 50 years. His decision to introduce National Health Service charges caused a feud with the party's leftwing, whose leader, Aneurin Bevan, he defeated in 1955 to become leader of the Labour party. He opposed the British invasion of Suez in 1956, and his refusal in 1960 to accept a narrow vote for unilateral nuclear disarmament at the party conference led to an unsuccessful leadership challenge by Harold Wilson. The following year Gaitskell secured a reversal of the vote, and in 1962 made a notable speech against Britain's entry into the European Economic Community. “It means the end of a thousand years of history,” he said.