Jennie Lee

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Janet Bevan Lee, Baroness Lee of Asheridge , called Jennie (born November 3, 1904 in Lochgelly , Fife , † November 16, 1988 in London ) was a Scottish politician of the Labor Party and from 1964 to 1970 Minister for the Arts in the government of Harold Wilson .

biography

Lee, the daughter of a miner, studied at the University of Edinburgh after completing school and graduated with degrees in education and law .

She began her political career in 1928 when, at the age of 24, she was elected as the youngest member of the lower house as a candidate for the Labor Party . There she represented the interests of the constituency of North Lanark until 1931 . As a passionate socialist , she led her election campaign at the time with great commitment.

In 1934 she married the Welsh lower house MPs Aneurin "Nye" Bevan . When the latter assumed increasingly important positions within the Labor Party in the following years and was finally appointed Minister of Health in the government of Prime Minister Clement Attlee in 1945, she stepped out of the spotlight despite her feminist principles and instead supported her husband. Nevertheless, she herself was a member of the lower house from 1945 to 1970, where she represented the constituency of Cannock .

After the death of her husband in 1960, she was finally appointed to a government as Minister for the Arts by Prime Minister Harold Wilson in 1964. In this position she doubled government spending on the arts and was also a key force in founding the Open University , the largest public university in Great Britain , in 1969 .

After leaving the government and the House of Commons, she was raised to the nobility in 1970 as a Life Peer with the title "Baroness Lee of Asheridge" and thus belonged to the House of Lords , the House of Lords .

Publications

  • Tomorrow is a New Day , 1939 ( autobiography )
  • My Life with Nye , 1980 (autobiography)

literature

personal data
SURNAME Lee, Jennie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lee, Janet Bevan, Baroness Lee of Asheridge
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Labor Party politician, Member of the House of Commons
DATE OF BIRTH November 3, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Lochgelly , Fife
DATE OF DEATH November 16, 1988
Place of death London