Prime Minister
As Prime Minister, Attlee appointed Ernest Bevin as Foreign Secretary and Hugh Dalton was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer (although it had widely been expected to be the other way around). Stafford Cripps became President of the Board of Trade, Herbert Morrison was given the post of Deputy Prime Minister and given overall control of Labour's nationalisation programme, Aneurin Bevan became Minister of Health, and Ellen Wilkinson, the only woman to serve in Attlee's government, became Minister of Education.
Attlee's government proved itself to be a radical reforming administration. In the 1945-46 session alone, pensions and other benefits were substantially increased, and from 1945 to 1948, over 200 public Acts of Parliament were passed, with eight major pieces of legislation placed on the statute book in 1946 alone.
Read more about this topic: Clement Attlee
Famous quotes related to prime minister:
“Sometimes it takes years to really grasp what has happened to your life. What do you do after you are world-famous and nineteen or twenty and you have sat with prime ministers, kings and queens, the Pope? What do you do after that? Do you go back home and take a job? What do you do to keep your sanity? You come back to the real world.”
—Wilma Rudolph (1940–1994)
“Vanessa wanted to be a ballerina. Dad had such hopes for her.... Corin was the academically brilliant one, and a fencer of Olympic standard. Everything was expected of them, and they fulfilled all expectations. But I was the one of whom nothing was expected. I remember a game the three of us played. Vanessa was the President of the United States, Corin was the British Prime Minister—and I was the royal dog.”
—Lynn Redgrave (b. 1943)