Earlier this year the Mikron Theatre Company toured a play dramatizing the life and times of Jennie Lee billed as the story of “The Radical MP You’ve Never Heard Of”. While over at the National Theatre audiences have flocked to see a biographical drama about her husband Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan.
Recent theatrical interest aside it felt a no brainer to write a blog profiling her colourful Parliamentary career spanning many decades filled with numerous twists and turns of fate. Typified by an indefatigable ability to recover from episodes of adversity and battle on even stronger.
A true Coal Miner’s Daughter.
FIFE-DOM
Lochgelly in Scotland’s Kingdom of Fife was a socialist hotbed in the early 20th Century. Local miners, such as James Lee, employed by the ‘Nellie Coal Pit’ were often politicized. He passed on these beliefs to his precocious teenage daughter Jennie destined not to join her contemporaries in nearby Dunfermline’s linen factories. Instead with bursary funding, she on a teacher training degree enrolled at Edinburgh University. The tumultuous events of the 1926 General Strike amounted to a political awakening for Lee, as she volunteered at emergency soup kitchens and used editing skills learnt on the university’s Rebel Student newspaper helped draft daily bulletins.
At an Independent Labour Party Conference following the strike Lee impressed the attendees with a highly critical speech concerning Ramsey MacDonald’s leadership. Family friend James Maxton MP acted as a mentor, and he persuaded the party hierarchy to nominate her to stand in the 1929 General Election for North Lanarkshire. Pitting the twenty-four-year-old in a David versus Goliath contest against landowner Lord Scone of Perthside. On the campaign trail she left her opponent for dust with a hectic itinerary that paid dividends producing a healthy 6,578-majority victory. Returning home Lee was greeted by a jubilant thousand-strong crowd at Cowdenbeath station.
(Read Parliament’s statement on the General Strike – parliament.uk/historic-hansard)
FOR THE PEOPLE
Elected as an MP before she was old enough to vote Lee attracted considerable press attention on entering Parliament. Hitting the ground running with a maiden address tearing shreds into Chancellor Winston Churchill’s budget and catching the roving eye of Charlie Chaplin from the Strangers Gallery. Afternoon tea with Hollywood superstars was one thing but her core motivation was to improve unemployment benefits through a comprehensive living wage framework to ease the situation for her working-class constituents. Frustrated by a lack of cohesive government policies, Lee found solace in a lasting friendship with fellow Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson.
Nye Bevan had also been part of the new Westminster intake and was introduced to Lee on the Commons Terrace by mutual friend Frank Wise. On initial impression she likened his suit to a London stockbroker’s not the correct attire for a former mineworker. In the summer of 1930, the threesome accompanied journalist John Strachey on a fact-finding expedition to Russia. The trip was overshadowed by a schedule causing Lee to fall ill with exhaustion. Fully recovered she soon had to contend with a snap election that divided the Labour movement into two camps and subsequently Lee lost her seat.
(Read Jennie Lee’s Maiden Speech on Churchill’s Budget – parliament.uk/historic-hansard)
COUPLE GOALS
Not someone to rest on their laurels Lee jumped on the American lecture tour circuit speaking to audiences ranging from Detroit automobile workers to rural Arkansas sharecroppers. Eventually, reverting to her Rebel Student days by taking on journalistic commissions for Labour’s official publication The New Leader and later the more left-wing Tribune. When the Spanish Civil War erupted in 1936, she was dispatched to compile field reports and on occasion shared a typewriter with the writer George Orwell. Now married to Bevan the couple eased into domesticity, leasing a country farmhouse and adopting two cats aptly named Samsom and Delilah.
An unlikely wartime alliance formed between Lord Max Beaverbrook and Lee. He recruited her to assist him in overseeing aircraft factory output and the production of barrage balloons. A brief tenure employed as the Daily Mirror’s Commons correspondent saw her watch first hand as Bevan was ostracised for making distinctly anti-Churchill comments. After a respectable showing standing as an independent candidate at a Bristol by-election, Labour selected Lee to contest the Cannock seat at the post-war election held in July 1945. Though success wasn’t a formality in this colliery community, the street bookies who made her clear favourite judged correctly.
(Read Nye Bevan’s speech on wartime propaganda – parliament.uk/historic-hansard)
ART THERAPY
The Westminster Abbey congregation fittingly sung Jerusalem to honour the man whose tenacity and sheer willpower strived to create the National Health Service (NHS). Bevan’s death from stomach cancer in July 1960 hit his wife hard leaving her bereft and unsure of what the future holds. As the decade progressed Harold Wilson, a Bevan protégé, took the governmental reins and approached Lee to take on the role of Minister for Arts. A noted supporter of artistic enterprise with a plethora of high-profile contacts the Prime Minister’s remit to bring the creative industries to the economic forefront perfectly suited Lee’s sensibilities.
Ably supported by Arts Council chairman Arnold Goodman they published the 1965 Policy for Arts White Paper setting the tone for what was to come. Her biggest achievement was greenlighting the continuation of London’s South Bank regeneration incorporating the National Theatre’s construction and championing a National Film School aiding homegrown cinema. Building up a head of steam the Lee and Goodman partnership convinced Wilson to increase Arts Council grants, triggering a boost in regional subsidies that extinguished any suggestion of metropolitan bias. In this enlightened period, Lee was a permanent fixture on guest lists for fund-raising galas and opening nights.
(Read Jennie Lee answer questions on the National Theatre – parliament.uk/historic-hansard)
WITHOUT WALLS
Harold Wilson had a dream to establish a ‘University of the Air’ based on external teaching via television lectures and postal correspondence. A ‘without walls’ concept providing distance learning to those with disabilities or parental responsibilities. Wilson knew that his all-embracing proposal wouldn’t be universally accepted by some cabinet colleagues so enlisted the ever-loyal Lee to be at the coalface. Unlike her arts portfolio this project had to be signed, sealed, and delivered under the Department of Education banner. Secretary of State Anthony Crosland voiced concerns emanating from the red brick universities sceptical of both its ethos and potential costs.
Ideally Lee wanted a fourth television channel broadcasting educational programmes for the rebranded Open University (OU). Lacking guaranteed advertising revenue, she sought an alternative agreeing with the BBC to show lectures in low-audience slots. Despite the tribulations of a sterling devaluation crisis in 1967 Lee secured a £3 million per annum OU budget and Lord Mountbatten laid the Milton Keynes Walton Hall Campus foundation stone. Labour’s 1970 General Election defeat placed an element of uncertainty regarding the University’s continued existence. However, newly installed Education Secretary Margaret Thatcher was a firm believer in social mobility opted to proceed with Wilson’s vision.
(Read Jennie Lee announce University of the Air Proposals -parliament.uk/historic-hansard)
ON REFLECTION
Constituency business had gradually fallen off the cliff for Lee and this become obvious when canvassing in Cannock for the 1970 General Election. A deep-lying feeling amongst the electorate that she’d neglected them for far too long came to the surface. Conservative Patrick Cormack used this to his advantage by easily defeating Lee. Wilson’s offer of a Life Peerage somewhat deflected the blow, and she regained confidence in the relaxed environs of the Upper House. The lack of an overbearing Government Whip structure pleased her, and subjects broached in the Lord’s chamber tended to lean towards favoured heritage matters.
Alexandra Palace staged the ‘Class of 1973’ inaugural Open University graduation ceremony and Lee received an honorary degree clad in a gold and sky-blue gown as the orchestra played Fanfare for the Common Man. In the eighties she fulfilled a long-held ambition publishing her memoirs titled My Life with Nye. A public platform that allowed Lee to settle a few old scores, it was met with appreciative reviews and good sales that brought a little added financial security. She died of pneumonia in 1988 and by request her ashes were scattered in the same Welsh hillside spot as Nye Bevan’s.
(Read Jennie Lee’s final speech in the House of Lords – parliament.uk/historic-hansard )
SOURCES
Jennie Lee: A Life by Patricia Hollis
My Life with Nye: Jennie Lee
The Political Life of Aneurin Bevan by Nick Thomas-Symonds
Oxford Dictionary National Biography – Jennie Lee extract written by Patricia Hollis
Well Harold Insists on Having It - The Political Struggle to Establish the Open University 1965-1967 by Peter Dorey – Contemporary British History, Volume 29, No 2
Marking Britain a Gayer and More Cultivated Country - Wilson, Lee, and Creative Industries in the 1960s by Lawrence Black – Contemporary British History, Volume 20, No 3
JLE/1: Papers of Jennie Lee, MP, 1956-2001, Parliamentary Archives
Hansard Parliamentary Debates
Times Digital Archive
BBC Coverage of the 1970 General Election, youtube.com
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