Ellen Wilkinson

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Ellen Wilkinson, 1924

Ellen Cicely Wilkinson (born October 8, 1891 in Ardwick , Manchester , † February 6, 1947 in London ) was a British politician of the Labor Party and the second minister of the United Kingdom.

Life

Ellen Wilkinson, who came from a poor family of factory workers, began studying history at the University of Manchester in 1910 after attending school with the support of a scholarship . During her studies, she already came into contact with socialist organizations such as the Fabian Society and the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), of which she became organizational secretary in 1913. In 1915 she became the organizing secretary of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers and was the first woman in that capacity in a British union.

In 1920 she was one of the founding members of the Communist Party of Great Britain and represented it in July 1921 in Moscow when the Red Trade Union International was founded . In 1923 she was elected to the Manchester City Council for the Communist Party .

After leaving in 1924, the Communist Party, she was a candidate of the Labor Party for the first time a member of the lower house ( House of Commons ) selected and represented in this up to their electoral defeat in 1931 the constituency Middlesbrough East . In June 1929 she became Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Health in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and held that office until August 1931.

In November 1935 she was re-elected to the House of Commons and belonged to it as a representative of the Jarrow constituency until her death. In October 1936, Ellen Wilkinson took part in the so-called “Jarrow March” or “Jarrow Crusade” from Jarrow to London, just under 500 kilometers away, at which 200 people protested against underemployment, unemployment and poverty.

In the coalition government of Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the Second World War , she first became Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Pensions in 1940, before she was State Secretary for Internal Security from 1940 to 1945. In this office she was u. a. entrusted with the management of the evacuation measures in the face of the bombing of the German Air Force on British cities . At the same time she was 1945 executive for some time Chairman ( Chairwoman ) of the Labor Party.

After the Labor Party's victory in the 1945 general election , Prime Minister Clement Attlee appointed her as Minister of Education in his cabinet on July 26, 1945 , making her the second female minister in Great Britain after Margaret Bondfield . She was a member of the Cabinet until her death.

Publications

In addition to her political activities, she was also active as a writer and published several books on political and historical topics, some of which appeared in the Left Book Club , but also a novel . Her main publications include:

  • The Workers History of the Great Strike (1927, co-authors Frank Horrabin and Raymond Postgate)
  • Clash (1929)
  • Peeps at Politicians (1931)
  • The Division Bell Mystery (1932, novel)
  • The Terror in Germany (1933)
  • Why was? (1934, co-author Edward Conze )
  • Why Fascism? (1934, co-author Edward Conze)
  • The Town That Was Murdered (1939)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Jarrow Crusade (BBC History)
  2. ^ Emil Birkert: On the edge of current events . Leisure and hiking publishing house, Stuttgart 1983, p. 197.
personal data
SURNAME Wilkinson, Ellen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wilkinson, Ellen Cicely (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British politician (Labor), Member of the House of Commons
DATE OF BIRTH October 8, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Ardwick , Manchester
DATE OF DEATH February 6, 1947
Place of death London