Minister of Defence | |
---|---|
Ministry of Defence (1947–1964) | |
Status | Abolished |
Member of | Cabinet |
Reports to | Prime Minister |
Precursor | Minister for Co-ordination of Defence |
Formation | 10 May 1940 |
First holder | Winston Churchill |
Final holder | Peter Thorneycroft |
Abolished | 1 April 1964 |
Succession | Secretary of State for Defence |
The post of Minister of Defence was responsible for co-ordination of defence and security from its creation in 1940 until its abolition in 1964. The post was a Cabinet-level post and generally ranked above the three service ministers, some of whom, however, continued to also serve in Cabinet.
Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, concerns about British forces being understrength led in 1936 to the creation of the post of Minister for Coordination of Defence by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. The post was abolished by Baldwin's successor Neville Chamberlain in April 1940.
On his appointment as Prime Minister in May 1940, Winston Churchill created for himself the new post of Minister of Defence. The post was created in response to previous criticism that there had been no clear single minister in charge of the prosecution of the war. In 1946, the post became the only cabinet-level post representing the military, with the three service ministers—the Secretary of State for War, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Secretary of State for Air—now formally subordinated to the Minister of Defence.
In 1964, the creation of a single, merged Ministry of Defence and the abolition of the separate service ministries in the UK led to the creation of the new post of Secretary of State for Defence, more popularly known as Defence Secretary.
Portrait | Name (birth–death) | Term of office | Tenure | Political party | Prime Minister | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Took office | Left office | ||||||
Winston Churchill MP for Epping (1874–1965) | 10 May 1940 | 27 July 1945 | 5 years, 78 days | Conservative | Churchill War | ||
Churchill Caretaker | |||||||
Clement Attlee MP for Limehouse (1883–1967) | 27 July 1945 | 20 December 1946 | 1 year, 146 days | Labour | Attlee I | ||
A. V. Alexander MP for Sheffield Hillsborough (1885–1965) | 20 December 1946 | 28 February 1950 | 3 years, 70 days | Labour Co-op | |||
Emanuel Shinwell MP for Easington (1884–1986) | 28 February 1950 | 26 October 1951 | 1 year, 240 days | Labour | Attlee II | ||
Winston Churchill MP for Woodford (1874–1965) | 28 October 1951 | 1 March 1952 | 127 days | Conservative | Churchill III | ||
Harold Alexander 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis (1891–1969) | 1 March 1952 | 18 October 1954 | 2 years, 231 days | Independent | |||
Harold Macmillan MP for Bromley (1894–1986) | 18 October 1954 | 7 April 1955 | 171 days | Conservative | |||
Selwyn Lloyd MP for The Wirral (1904–1978) | 7 April 1955 | 20 December 1955 | 257 days | Conservative | Eden | ||
Walter Monckton MP for Bristol West (1891–1965) | 20 December 1955 | 18 October 1956 | 303 days | Conservative | |||
Antony Head MP for Carshalton (1906–1983) | 18 October 1956 | 9 January 1957 | 83 days | Conservative | |||
Duncan Sandys MP for Streatham (1906–1987) | 13 January 1957 | 14 October 1959 | 2 years, 274 days | Conservative | Macmillan I | ||
Harold Watkinson MP for Woking (1910–1995) | 14 October 1959 | 13 July 1962 | 2 years, 272 days | Conservative | Macmillan II | ||
Peter Thorneycroft MP for Monmouth (1909–1994) | 13 July 1962 | 1 April 1964 | 1 year, 263 days | Conservative | |||
Douglas-Home |
The post of Minister of Defence was abolished in 1964 and replaced by the new post of Secretary of State for Defence.
Royal Navy | British Army | Royal Air Force | Co-ordination | |
1628 | First Lord of the Admiralty (1628–1964) | |||
1794 | Secretary of State for War (1794–1801) | |||
1801 | Secretary of State for War and the Colonies (1801–1854) | |||
1854 | Secretary of State for War (1854–1964) | |||
1919 | Secretary of State for Air (1919–1964) | |||
1936 | Minister for Co-ordination of Defence (1936–1940) | |||
1940 | Minister of Defence (1940–1964) | |||
1964 | Secretary of State for Defence (1964–present) |
The Admiralty was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for the command of the Royal Navy until 1964, historically under its titular head, the Lord High Admiral – one of the Great Officers of State. For much of its history, from the early 18th century until its abolition, the role of the Lord High Admiral was almost invariably put "in commission" and exercised by the Lords Commissioner of the Admiralty, who sat on the governing Board of Admiralty, rather than by a single person. The Admiralty was replaced by the Admiralty Board in 1964, as part of the reforms that created the Ministry of Defence and its Navy Department.
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The Ministry of Defence (MINISDEF) is the department of the Government of Spain responsible for planning, developing and carrying out the general guidelines of the Government about the defence policy and the managing of the military administration. It is the administrative and executive body of the Spanish Armed Forces.
The Navy Department was a former ministerial service department of the British Ministry of Defence responsible for the control and direction of His Majesty's Naval Service. It was established on 1 April 1964 when the Admiralty was absorbed into a unified Ministry of Defence, where it became the Navy Department. Political oversight of the department originally lay with the Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy (1964–1967) it then passed to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy (1967–1981), then later to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces (1981–1990), and finally the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (1991–1997).
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