MP for Ebbw Vale, 1929-1960 – Minister for Health, 1945-51
A visionary; an inspirational example of the desire for intellectual amelioration sparked by the community-built Workmen’s Institutes - Bevan attributed his education to these establishments. He was a pioneering figure, innovating such life-changing political ideas as the NHS. Bevan strode an international stage, but his ideas were founded in the aspirations he felt for communities like those in which he grew up.
‘The first function of a political leader is advocacy. It is he [/she] who must make articulate the wants, the frustration, and the aspiration of the masses . . . If freedom is to be saved and enlarged, poverty must be ended. There is no other solution.’ Aneurin Bevan, In Place of Fear (1952)
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