Sir Stafford Cripps | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Chancellor of the Exchequer | |
| In office 13 November 1947 – 19 October 1950 | |
| Prime Minister | Clement Attlee |
| Preceded by | Hugh Dalton |
| Succeeded by | Hugh Gaitskell |
| Minister for Economic Affairs | |
| In office 29 September 1947 – 13 November 1947 | |
| Prime Minister | Clement Attlee |
| Preceded by | New creation |
| Succeeded by | Post abolished (Trial post) |
| President of the Board of Trade | |
| In office 27 July 1945 – 29 September 1947 | |
| Prime Minister | Clement Attlee |
| Preceded by | Oliver Lyttelton |
| Succeeded by | Harold Wilson |
| Minister of Aircraft Production | |
| In office 22 November 1942 – 25 May 1945 | |
| Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
| Preceded by | John Llewellin |
| Succeeded by | Ernest Brown |
| In office 19 February 1942 – 22 November 1942 | |
| Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
| Preceded by |
|
| Succeeded by |
|
| Solicitor General for England and Wales | |
| In office 22 October 1930 – 24 August 1931 | |
| Prime Minister | James Ramsay MacDonald |
| Preceded by | James Melville |
| Succeeded by | Thomas Inskip |
| |
| In office 16 January 1931 – 25 October 1950 | |
| Preceded by | Walter John Baker |
| Succeeded by | Tony Benn |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Richard Stafford Cripps[1] (1889-04-24)24 April 1889 Chelsea, London, England |
| Died | 21 April 1952(1952-04-21) (aged 62) Zürich, Switzerland |
| Party | Labour |
| Other political affiliations | Popular Front |
| Spouse | DameIsobel Cripps |
| Children | 4, includingPeggy Cripps |
| Parents |
|
| Relatives | Kwame Anthony Appiah (grandson) |
| Alma mater | University College London |
Sir Richard Stafford CrippsCH QC FRS[1] (24 April 1889 – 21 April 1952) was a BritishLabour Party politician,barrister, anddiplomat.
A wealthy lawyer by background, Cripps first entered Parliament at aby-election in January 1931, and was one of a handful of Labour frontbenchers to retain his seat atthe October general election that year. He became a leading spokesman for the left wing and for co-operation in aPopular Front with Communists before 1939, in which year the Labour Party expelled him. During this time he became intimately involved withKrishna Menon and theIndia League.
During World War II (1939–1945), Cripps served from May 1940 to January 1942 asAmbassador to the USSR, with major responsibility for building rapport with Hitler'sMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact partner, who in 1941 was turned into his greatest foe byOperation Barbarossa. Back in London in early 1942, he became a member of theWar Cabinet of thewartime coalition government. In March 1942, Prime MinisterWinston Churchill sent him to India to negotiate with Indian leaders about Indian cooperation in the war effort in exchange fordominion status after the war. Cripps failed in thismission, as his proposals were too radical for Churchill and the Cabinet, while being too conservative forMahatma Gandhi and other Indian leaders. Nonetheless, he kept the trust and friendship ofV. K. Krishna Menon, allowing him to retain a role in Indian affairs, including as a member of the1946 Cabinet Mission to India and, ultimately, in having a voice in the selection of the finalViceroy in 1947. From November 1942 he served asMinister of Aircraft Production, an important post, but one outside the inner War Cabinet.[2]
Cripps rejoined the Labour Party in February 1945, and after the war he served in the 1945-1951Attlee ministry, first asPresident of the Board of Trade and between 1947 and 1950 asChancellor of the Exchequer. Labour Party member and historianKenneth O. Morgan claimed of his role in the latter position that he was "the real architect of the rapidly improving economic picture and growing affluence from 1952 onwards".[3]
The economy improved after 1947, benefiting from American money given through grants from theMarshall Plan as well as from loans. However, the pound had to be devalued in 1949. Cripps kept the wartime rationing-system in place to hold down consumption during an "age of austerity", promoted exports and maintained full employment with static wages. The public especially respected "his integrity, competence, and Christian principles".[2]
Cripps was born inChelsea, London, the son ofCharles Cripps, abarrister and later Conservative MP, and the former Theresa Potter, the sister ofBeatrice Webb andCatherine Courtney. Cripps grew up in a wealthy family and was educated atWinchester College, where the Headmaster described him as "a thoroughly good fellow"[4] and atUniversity College London, where he studied chemistry. He left science for the law, and in 1913 wascalled to the bar by theMiddle Temple. He served in the First World War as aRed Cross ambulance driver in France, and then managed a chemical factory producing armaments. He practised as a barrister during the 1920s, where he specialised inpatent cases, and was reported to be the highest paid lawyer in England.[5] He was appointed aKing's Counsel in 1927.
Cripps was a member of theChurch of England and in the 1920s became a leader in the World Alliance to Promote International Friendship through the Churches, as his father had been. From 1923 to 1929 Cripps was the group's treasurer and its most energetic lecturer.[6][7]
At the end of the 1920s, Cripps moved to the left in his political views, and in 1930 he joined the Labour Party. The next year, he was appointedSolicitor-General in the second Labour government, and received the then customaryknighthood. In 1931, Cripps was elected toParliament ina by-election for Bristol East. As an MP, he was a strong proponent ofMarxist social and economic policies, although he had strong faith inevangelical Christianity, and did not subscribe to theMarxist rejection of religion.[8]
In the1931 general election, Cripps was one of only three former Labour ministers to hold his seat, alongsideGeorge Lansbury, who subsequently became party leader, andClement Attlee, deputy leader. In 1932, Cripps helped found and became the leader of theSocialist League, which was composed largely of intellectuals and teachers from theIndependent Labour Party who rejected its decision to disaffiliate from Labour. The Socialist League put the case for an austere form ofdemocratic socialism. He argued that on taking power the Labour Party should immediately enact an Emergency Powers Act, allowing it to rule by decree and thus "forestall any sabotage by financial interests", and also immediately abolish theHouse of Lords.[6][9]
In 1936, Labour'sNational Executive Committee dissociated itself from a speech in which Cripps said he did not "believe it would be a bad thing for the British working class if Germany defeated us".[10] Cripps also opposedBritish rearmament,
Money cannot make armaments. Armaments can only be made by the skill of the British working class, and it is the British working class who would be called upon to use them. To-day you have the most glorious opportunity that the workers have ever had if you will only use the necessity of capitalism in order to get power yourselves. The capitalists are in your hands. Refuse to make munitions, refuse to make armaments, and they are helpless. They would have to hand the control of the country over to you.[11]
Cripps was an early advocate of aunited front against the rising threat offascism[12] and he opposed an appeasement policy towardsNazi Germany. In 1936, he was the moving force behind a Unity Campaign, involving the Socialist League, the Independent Labour Party and theCommunist Party of Great Britain, designed to forge electoral unity against the right. Opposed by the Labour leadership, the Unity Campaign failed in its intentions. Rather than face expulsion from Labour, Cripps dissolved the Socialist League in 1937.Tribune, set up as the campaign's newspaper by Cripps andGeorge Strauss, survived. In early 1939, however, Cripps was expelled from the Labour Party for his advocacy of aPopular Front with the Communist Party, the Independent Labour Party, the Liberal Party, and anti-appeasementConservatives. In 1938, Cripps visitedJamaica to investigate violence which took place during mass strikes. During one of the political meetings he spoke at, the audience included the future pioneer of black civil rights in Britain,Billy Strachan, who had been taken by his father to hear Cripps speak. During this same meeting, thePeople's National Party was formed.[13]
Soon after war broke out in October 1939, Cripps set off on an informal five-month world tour with a friend,Geoffrey Masterman Wilson, as his secretary. In India, they met Gandhi, Nehru, and Jinnah, then on to Burma and China, where they metChiang Kai-shek, then to Moscow, to visitMolotov. They then went on via China to the United States, where Cripps carried out a "propaganda tour", and returned to England in April 1940. On their travels, they jointly kept a shared diary, which came to some 180,000 words.[14]
WhenWinston Churchill formed his wartime coalition government in 1940 he appointed Cripps Ambassador to theSoviet Union in the view that Cripps, who had Marxist sympathies, could negotiate withJoseph Stalin who had a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany through theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact. When Hitler beganOperation Barbarossa the attack the Soviet Union in June 1941, Cripps became a key figure in forging analliance between the western powers and the Soviet Union.[15]
In 1942, Cripps returned to Britain and made a broadcast about the Soviet war effort. The popular response was phenomenal, and Cripps rapidly became one of the most popular politicians in the country, despite having no party backing. He was appointed a member of theWar Cabinet, with the jobs ofLord Privy Seal andLeader of the House of Commons, and was considered for a short period after his return from Moscow as a rival to Churchill in his hold on the country.[16]
Churchill responded by sending Cripps to India in March 1942. The goal of theCripps Mission was to negotiate an agreement with the nationalist leaders that would keep India loyal to the British war effort in exchange for self-government after the war. Cripps designed the specific proposals himself, but they were too radical for Churchill and the Viceroy, and too conservative for Mahatma Gandhi and the Indians, who demanded immediate independence. No middle way was found and the mission was a failure.[17]
In November 1942, Cripps stepped down from being Leader of the House of Commons and was appointedMinister of Aircraft Production, a position outside the War Cabinet in which he served with substantial success until May 1945, when the wartime coalition ended.[18] A supporter of Air Chief MarshalHarris's strategic bombing campaign against Germany, Cripps stated in a July 1943 broadcast that "the more we ... can destroy from the air the industrial and transport facilities of the Axis, the weaker will become his resistance. ... The heavier our air attack, the lighter will be the total of our casualties".[18]
Cripps was unhappy with the Britishblack propaganda campaign against Germany. When Cripps discovered details of the German radio work ofSefton Delmer (through the intervention ofRichard Crossman) he wrote toAnthony Eden, then Foreign Secretary: "If this is the sort of thing that is needed to win the war, why, I'd rather lose it." Delmer was defended byRobert Bruce Lockhart who pointed out the need to reach the sadist in the German nature.[19]
In February 1945, Cripps rejoined the Labour Party.[20]
When Labour won the1945 general election, Clement Attlee appointed CrippsPresident of the Board of Trade, the second most important economic post in the government. Although still a strong socialist, Cripps had modified his views sufficiently to be able to work with mainstream Labour ministers. In Britain's desperate post-war economic circumstances, Cripps became associated with the policy of "austerity". As an upper-class socialist, he held a puritanical view of society, enforcing rationing with equal severity against all classes. Together with other individuals, he was instrumental in the foundation of the original College of Aeronautics, nowCranfield University, in 1946. The Stafford Cripps Learning and Teaching Centre on Cranfield's campus is named after him.[21]
In 1946, Soviet jet engine designers approached Stalin with a request to buy jet designs from Western sources to overcome design difficulties. Stalin is said to have replied: "What fool will sell us his secrets?" He gave his assent to the proposal, and Soviet scientists and designers travelled to the United Kingdom to meet Cripps and request the engines. To Stalin's amazement, Cripps and the Labour government were willing to provide technical information on theRolls-Royce Nene centrifugal-flow jet engine designed by RAF officerFrank Whittle, along with discussions of a licence to manufacture Nene engines. The Nene engine was promptlyreverse-engineered and produced in modified form as the SovietKlimov VK-1 jet engine, later incorporated into theMiG-15 which flew in time for use against UN forces in North Korea in 1950, causing the loss of severalB-29 bombers and cancellation of their daylight bombing missions overNorth Korea.[22] A US fighter Aircraft that fought the M15 was theGrumman F9F Panther which was equipped with the US Version of the Nene the Pratt & Whitney J42
Also in 1946, Cripps returned to India as part of theCabinet Mission, which proposed formulae for independence to the Indian leaders. The other two members of the delegation wereLord Pethick-Lawrence, theSecretary of State for India, andA. V. Alexander, theFirst Lord of the Admiralty. The solution devised by the three men, known as the Cabinet Mission Plan, was unsatisfactory to theIndian National Congress mainly its principal leaders, and instead of having to hold together the emerging one nation, Indian National Congress leaders travelled further down the road that eventually led toPartition.
In 1947, amid a growing economic and political crisis, Cripps tried to persuade Attlee to retire in favour ofErnest Bevin, who was in favour of Attlee remaining. Cripps was instead appointed to the new post ofMinister for Economic Affairs. Six weeks laterHugh Dalton resigned asChancellor of the Exchequer and Cripps succeeded him, with the position of Minister for Economic Affairs now merged with the Chancellorship. He increased taxes and continued strategic rationing which muted consumption to boost thebalance of trade and stabilise thePound Sterling seeing Britain trade its way out of a risk of fiscal andeconomic gloom. He was among those who brought about thenationalisation of strategic industries such as coal and steel.[23]
Amid financial problems from 1948 to 1949, Cripps maintained a high level of social spending on housing, health, and other welfare services, while also maintaining the location of industry policy. Personal incomes and free time continued to rise, as characterised by cricket and football enjoying unprecedented booms, together with the holiday camps, the dance hall, and the cinema.[24] In his last budget as Chancellor (1950), the house building programme was restored to 200,000 per annum (after having previously been reduced due to government austerity measures), income tax was reduced for low-income earners as an overtime incentive, and spending on health, national insurance, and education was increased.[25][26]
During the period Cripps imposed harsh foreign currency restrictions on private and commercial travellers, he was paying for his grandchildren's Swiss boarding school and for both his daughter's and his own Swiss sanatorium.[27][28]
Cripps had suffered for many years fromcolitis, inflammation of the lower bowel; a condition aggravated by stress. In 1950, his health broke down and he was forced to resign his office in October. Heresigned from Parliament the same month, and at theresulting by-election on 30 November he was succeeded as the MP forBristol South East byAnthony Wedgwood Benn.
Cripps was the sororal nephew of Beatrice Webb and Catherine Courtney. His mother died when he was four years old. His stepmother,Marian Ellis, had a profound influence on him. He was married toIsobel Swithinbank, who became the Honourable Lady Cripps, daughter ofHarold William Swithinbank, better known as Dame Isobel Cripps (1891–1979), and had four children
Cripps was avegetarian, certainly for health reasons and possibly also for ethical reasons. "Cripps suffered from recurring illness which was alleviated by nature cure and a vegetarian diet...".[33] His male-line descendants arein remainder to thebarony Parmoor. In 1989, aBlue Plaque was unveiled at 32 Elm Park Gardens, Chelsea to mark the site of Cripps' birth.[34]
Cripps died of cancer on 21 April 1952 while inZürich, Switzerland 3 days shy of his 63rd birthday. He was cremated at Sihlfeld Crematorium in Zürich. His ashes are buried in the churchyard inSapperton, Gloucestershire, and his wife is buried beside him.[35]
The Stafford Cripps estate on Gee Street in the formerMetropolitan Borough of Finsbury is named in his honour; the three blocks are called Parmoor, Sapperton and Cotswold, after the Cripps family title and Sir Stafford Cripps resting place.
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forBristol East 1931–1950 | Constituency abolished |
| New constituency | Member of Parliament forBristol South East 1950–Oct. 1950 | Succeeded by |
| Legal offices | ||
| Preceded by | Solicitor General for England and Wales 1931 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Leader of the House of Commons 1942 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Lord Privy Seal 1942 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of Aircraft Production 1942–1945 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | President of the Board of Trade 1945–1947 | Succeeded by |
| New office | Minister for Economic Affairs 1947 | office abolished |
| Preceded by | Chancellor of the Exchequer 1947–1950 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Chairman of theSocialist League 1933–1936 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | President of theFabian Society 1951–1952 | Succeeded by |
| Academic offices | ||
| Preceded by | Rector of the University of Aberdeen 1942–1945 | Succeeded by |
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