The Lord Chuter-Ede | |
|---|---|
)%2c_Bestanddeelnr_900-7223.jpg) Ede in 1945 | |
| Leader of the House of Commons | |
| In office 16 March 1951 – 26 October 1951 | |
| Prime Minister | Clement Attlee |
| Preceded by | Herbert Morrison |
| Succeeded by | Harry Crookshank |
| Home Secretary | |
| In office 3 August 1945 – 26 October 1951 | |
| Prime Minister | Clement Attlee |
| Preceded by | Sir Donald Somervell |
| Succeeded by | Sir David Maxwell Fyfe |
| Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education | |
| In office 15 May 1940 – 13 August 1944 | |
| President | |
| Preceded by | Kenneth Lindsay |
| Succeeded by | Office abolished |
| Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education | |
| In office 13 August 1944 – 23 May 1945 | |
| Minister | Rab Butler |
| Preceded by | Office created |
| Succeeded by | Thelma Cazalet-Keir |
| Member of Parliament forSouth Shields | |
| In office 14 November 1935 – 25 September 1964 | |
| Preceded by | Harcourt Johnstone |
| Succeeded by | Arthur Blenkinsop |
| In office 30 May 1929 – 6 October 1931 | |
| Preceded by | Edward Harney |
| Succeeded by | Harcourt Johnstone |
| Member of Parliament forMitcham | |
| In office 3 March 1923 – 16 November 1923 | |
| Preceded by | Thomas Worsfold |
| Succeeded by | Richard James Meller |
| Personal details | |
| Born | James Chuter Ede (1882-09-11)11 September 1882 Epsom, Surrey |
| Died | 11 November 1965(1965-11-11) (aged 83) Ewell, Surrey |
| Political party | Labour |
| Other political affiliations | Liberal |
| Spouse | |
| Alma mater | Christ's College, Cambridge |
James Chuter Chuter-Ede, Baron Chuter-Ede,CH, PC, DL, JP (né Ede; 11 September 1882 – 11 November 1965), was a British teacher, trade unionist andLabour Party politician. He was aMember of Parliament (MP) for 32 years, and served as the soleHome Secretary under Prime MinisterClement Attlee from 1945 to 1951, becoming the longest-serving Home Secretary of the 20th or 21st century.
James Chuter Ede was born inEpsom, Surrey, elder son (there were two daughters) of "lower-middle-class" parents,[1] James Ede, aNonconformist (Unitarian)grocer[2] (who had been an assistant to John Budgen, founder of theBudgens grocery store chain) and his wife Agnes Mary, daughter of local builder James Chuter.[3] He was educated at EpsomNational School,Dorking High School for Boys, Battersea Pupil Teachers' Centre, andChrist's College, Cambridge, where he studied natural sciences. He attended Cambridge through a Surrey county scholarship, which did not cover his living expenses, and he ran out of funds at university, dropping out without a degree at the end of his second year.[4] In April and May 1943, Ede's ministerial bossRab Butler arranged for him to receive an honoraryMA from Cambridge.[5] Either through his family background or by a decision made when a student, he became a Unitarian, and his religion consumed much of his time and effort later in life.[6]
Had he graduated from Cambridge, Ede might have pursued a career as a science master in the grammar or public school systems, but instead he became an assistant master at council elementary schools inSurrey from 1905 to 1914, mainly inMortlake.[7] He took an active part in the Surrey County Teachers’ Association (SCTA), part of theNational Union of Teachers. He was active in theLiberal Party, and in 1908 was elected as a member ofEpsom Urban District Council, as the youngest councillor in Surrey, and probably the youngest urban district councillor in the country.[8] In 1914, Ede stood for election toSurrey County Council and, as a council employee, had to resign his teaching post before the poll. He was elected, and never worked as a teacher again.[9]
Much of his council work concentrated on education, as the SCTA wanted teacher representation on the Education Committee, to which, after a struggle, he was appointed.[10] During theFirst World War he served in theEast Surrey Regiment andRoyal Engineers, reaching the rank ofActingRegimental Sergeant Major. He spent most of the War in France, probably working with poison gas.[11]
During the war, Ede joined theLabour Party, having been critical for some time of senior Liberal figures and of wartime establishment attitudes, and believing Labour better represented working people.[12] He was selected as Labour candidate forEpsom in1918, but was soundly defeated by a candidate who had been given the "Coalition Coupon". He was appointed assistant secretary of the SCTA, which provided some Union sponsorship for his county council work. He retained this post until he became a Government minister, and he gradually took over running the Association, as well as dominating education policy in Surrey, a county where population increases brought about the need for much new school building.[13]
Ede chaired Epsom UDC in 1920.[14] Ede was first elected to theHouse of Commons as Member of Parliament (MP) forMitcham, ata by-election in March 1923, which caused a considerable stir in the media.[15] However, he lost the seat in December at the1923 general election, and was defeated there again in1924.[16]
Ede eventually left Epsom UDC in 1927, having lived for some years in Mitcham.[14] He returned toParliament at the1929 general election, for theTyneside seat ofSouth Shields.[17] In the short-livedLabour government of 1929–31, Ede was appointed in 1930 to chair a government committee on educational standards in private schools.[18] This reported in 1932, and Ede gradually became the Labour Party's main specialist in the field of education, following the retirement from active politics ofCharles Trevelyan, whose encouragement Ede had received, including through this appointment.[19]
Ede had again lost his seat in Parliament at the1931 election.[17] He rejoined Epsom UDC (by now Epsom and Ewell UDC) in 1933, and chaired Surrey CC the same year.[14] In 1934 Ede became chairman of theLondon and Home Counties Joint Electricity Authority, of which he had been a member since 1928. He held this post until 1940.[20]
Ede was re-elected to Parliament for South Shields at the1935 general election, and held the seat until his retirement from the Commons at the1964 general election.[21] When Epsom and Ewell were awarded borough status in 1937, he was chosen as the "Charter Mayor", and led the activities celebrating the new Borough’s charter. He was appointed a deputy lieutenant for the county of Surrey.[14] Ede also became chairman of the British Electrical Development Association in 1937.[20]
Ede showed great interest in the sciences and the uses to which they could be put, being also a keen photographer. He also contributed greatly to environmental protection in Surrey, encouraging extension ofgreen belt, the purchase of property to prevent development, and buildingbypasses to restrict traffic in town centres.[22]
In thewartime coalition, Ede was appointed on 15 May 1940 to junior ministerial office asParliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education, and served under twoConservativePresidents, firstHerwald Ramsbotham, and thenRab Butler.[23] Ede was a very safe pair of hands and his background complemented that of Butler, who was a practising Anglican, privately educated and from a well-to-do family, and who initially had little knowledge of state elementary schools. Ede was also a useful link between Butler and the Labour leaders Attlee,Arthur Greenwood andErnest Bevin. (Ede was also governor of a Jesuit School, although that was less helpful.) Both men also gained a reputation for integrity.[24][25] There remained considerable cross-party respect between Ede and Butler during their various later political activities.[26]
He adopted the work initiated by the Board’s civil servants underSir Maurice Holmes to reform education.[27] On 4 February 1942 Ede, who had already grown to respect Butler, declined a request that he move to the Ministry of War Transport, although he would have obeyed a “direct order” from Churchill. Churchill deferred to Attlee’s wish to keep Ede in place.[28]
Much of the time of ministers and officials was taken up in negotiating with the Protestant Churches, with the Church of England wanting greater control of religious education in state schools in return for the absorption of Anglican schools into the state system.[29] The Church of England had been relatively sympathetic to Herwald Ramsbotham's Green Book (June 1941), which had proposed permitting denominational teaching - which would in practice have been mostly Anglican - in state schools to children over the age of 11, lifting the ban which had been in place since the Cowper-Temple Clause of the1870 Forster Act. Although agreement was eventually reached, a brief delay was caused by Ede's "White Memorandum" of March 1942, published just before Easter. This reflected nonconformist lobbying since the Green Book, and Ede’s views and those of his officials.[30] Anglicans, who had much support among Conservative MPs, were not pleased with the "White Memorandum" proposal for compulsory transfer of schools in "single school areas" (areas, mainly rural, where the Anglican school, often built by the local squire, was theonly school) toLEA control, a move which tended to be favoured by nonconformists and teaching unions.[31]
Ministers and officials had less success negotiating with the Roman Catholic Church, who wanted to retain complete autonomy in their schools while receiving 100% state subsidy for infrastructure (rather than the 50% on offer for Voluntary Aided, i.e. semi-autonomous, schools). On one occasion (exact date not given by Butler's biographers but probably in 1942-3), Butler and Ede drove to the Northern Bishops' conference atUshaw College, nearHexham. They were given dinner and shown the chapel but were given no concessions.[32][33]
Along with Butler, Ede published a formalwhite paper on planned education reform (July 1943). This covered several areas, including raising theschool-leaving age to 15 or 16, enshrining the separation ofelementary andsecondary schooling from age 11 (as opposed to the existing overlap since the school leaving age had been raised to 14 in1918), whether there should beseparate schools for pupils with different aptitudes (favoured by education doctrine at the time, although in the event the choice was not prescribed in the 1944 Act but was left a matter of local option), how to assimilatepublic schools into the system (theFleming Report would recommend that public school places be made open to state scholarships, although this was never implemented), and the ‘dual system’ of state and religious schools in the public sector.[34]
With Butler, Ede steered theEducation Act 1944 through Parliament, and it is clear that his detailed knowledge of state education, which Butler lacked, was crucial to the success of this measure.[35] At the Second Reading of the bill in March 1944,Thelma Cazalet-Keir proposed two amendments, to raise the school leaving age to 16 by 1951 and demanding equal pay for women teachers, which were passed by 117-116 on 29 March 1944, the only time the Coalition suffered a significant defeat in a division. Butler, who thought it wrong to dictate to the teaching profession, stormed out of the Chamber and was rumoured to be about to resign. Ernest Bevin and Ede threatened to resign if Butler was forced out, and Churchill made the amendment a matter of confidence and ensured its defeat by 425-23 on 30 March. This was one of the events which made Churchill and the Conservatives appear reactionary, contributing to their election defeat in 1945.[36]
The Act set the school-leaving age at 15 with effect from April 1947, with the long-term aim of raising it to 16, and made secondary education free, abolishing the term "elementary school". It establishednursery schools and classes, along with provision for children needingspecial educational treatment. It provided forfurther education, medical treatment in schools, school meals and milk, and social,religious andphysical education. Independent schools were put under a programme of inspection, acompulsory act of worship introduced, and the rôle and requirements oflocal education authorities made clear.[37]
Although he had expected to be appointed Minister of Education following thepost-war Labour victory, Ede was appointedHome Secretary in the1945 Labour government ofClement Attlee, and remained in that post throughout. He was concurrentlyLeader of the House of Commons in 1951. He was responsible for restructuring several public services, through thePolice Act 1946, theFire Services Act 1947, theCivil Defence Act 1948, and the Justices of the Peace Act 1949. In addition, he was closely involved in theChildren Act 1948, theBritish Nationality Act 1948, theRepresentation of the People Act 1948, and theCriminal Justice Act 1948.[38] He used his experience in local government and education to decide the right level of local authority control for services he reconstituted – the Fire Service, Civil Defence and the police, which he organised into a more professional force, with training centres developing consistent standards. Inheritingchild care services and magistrates’ courts operating piecemeal throughout the country, his reforms set up consistent procedures and practices.[39]
Changes to the electoral system in the Representation of the People Act finally established the principle of "one person, one vote" andsingle-member constituencies, for which in Ede's view there had been pressure from the time of theCivil War and through the era ofChartism to his own period. He abolisheduniversity seats, along with the business vote, two-member constituencies and the privileged electoral status of theCity of London.[40]
The British Nationality Act established the single status of "Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies", without regard to race or colour, so that all citizens of the UK and its colonies (there were few independentCommonwealth members at the time) continued to be equally able to live and work in the UK.[41]
The Criminal Justice Act abolished the sentences ofhard labour, penal servitude and whipping, and established new arrangements forprobation and the treatment of young offenders. It also ended the right ofpeers to be tried by theHouse of Lords. Attempts to amend it to abolish capital punishment were unsuccessful (see below).[42]
Ede established theLynskey tribunal under SirGeorge Lynskey in 1948 to investigate allegations of corruption among ministers and civil servants.[43] Changes he also brought about included ending the tradition that the Home Secretary attends royal births, which started following the rumours thatJames II’sson was an impostor, smuggled into the royal birth chamber.[44] Ede helped change the date of theGrand National horse race to a Saturday, and proposed thatRemembrance Sunday be moved to a date in the summer, reflecting the different days on which the World Wars ended (this was not taken up).[45] He arranged the naturalisation ofPrince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and was involved in the choice of Mountbatten as his British surname.[46]
Ede ceased to be in government when Labour lost the1951 United Kingdom general election, and pursued other interests during his remaining 13 years in opposition.[47] As well as his British Museum work, he became an active member of theBBC's General Advisory Council, and held a leading role in theUnitarian Church.[48] In 1964 he left the Commons and was created alife peer asBaron Chuter-Ede, ofEpsom in theCounty of Surrey, on 1 January 1965,[49] having accordingly adopted the surnameChuter-Ede on 18 December 1964.[50]
When Home Secretary, Ede expanded his activities in the Unitarian Church, addressing itsGeneral Assembly in 1947, and arranging for the church to be represented atthe Cenotaph onRemembrance Sunday. He also spoke to various Unitarian congregations, and increased this activity after he left office in 1951. He attended congresses of theInternational Association for Liberal Christianity and Religious Freedom (IARF), and in 1955 was elected its President. In that connection, he paid more than one visit toNorth America.
From 1957 to 1958, Ede was President of the Unitarian General Assembly, and for a year he travelled tirelessly around the country, addressing different congregations.[6]
In 1938, Ede voted for a motion in favour of abolishing the death penalty formurder. This did not result in any change in the law but, when he was Home Secretary, his own Criminal Justice Bill in 1948 was successfully amended by MPs who wished to abolishhanging. However, by this time Ede, in line with the policy of the Attlee Government, opposed the reform. A person sentenced to hang was entitled to appeal to the Monarch for mercy, so in practice the Home Secretary, to whom the task was delegated, decided whether each execution should proceed. For a while he agreed to commute every death sentence tolife imprisonment, but theHouse of Lords then rejected the amendment, and theCriminal Justice Act 1948 did not abolish capital punishment. He permitted hangings to continue.
In 1950Timothy Evans was convicted of murdering his own daughter, and Ede approved his death sentence. In 1953, afterJohn Christie had been convicted and hanged for a murder committed in the same house (and it was clear he had committed several others), Ede eventually concluded that he had made the wrong decision in regard to Evans.[51]
He took part in the campaign for a pardon for Evans, and ended his career supporting the cause of abolition. In November 1965, capital punishment for murder was abolished by theMurder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965, and Evans's body was transferred to consecrated ground, shortly before Ede's death. His campaign was described as "the last struggle of a liberal nonconformist of the old school".[52]
Ede married Lilian Mary, daughter of Richard Williams, in 1917. They had no children, and she died in 1948, having been ill for some years. Lord Chuter-Ede survived her by 17 years and died atEwell, Surrey, in November 1965, aged 83.
Chuter Ede Education Centre in South Shields is named after him. It was formerly a comprehensive school. There are also a ward inEpsom Hospital and a primary school nearNewark-on-Trent which bear his name. The Labour Party headquarters in South Shields is at Ede House, opened and named shortly before he ceased to be its MP.
Ede left twelve volumes of diaries, now residing in theBritish Library.[53] The diaries (largely neither transcribed nor published) give an account of his wartime activities from 1941 to 1945 in great detail, as well as shorter memoirs from his time as Home Secretary, which illustrate the wide range of duties and concerns which went with that office in the mid-20th century.[54] At the suggestion of an historian who used them, with his permission, in her research, he left most of them to theBritish Museum, of which he became a trustee – initiallyex officio as Home Secretary, and then in his own right when he lost office.[55]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forMitcham 1923–1923 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forSouth Shields 1929–1931 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forSouth Shields 1935–1964 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Home Secretary 1945–1951 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Leader of the House of Commons 1951 | Succeeded by |
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