Stafford Cripps

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Cripps meeting Mahatma Gandhi during the Second World War Cripps-gandhiji.jpg
Cripps meeting Mahatma Gandhi during the Second World War

Churchill responded by sending Cripps to India in March 1942. The goal of the Cripps Mission was to negotiate an agreement with the nationalist leaders that would keep India loyal to the British war effort in exchange for self-government after the war. Cripps designed the specific proposals himself, but they were too radical for Churchill and the Viceroy, and too conservative for Mahatma Gandhi and the Indians, who demanded immediate independence. No middle way was found and the mission was a failure. [16]

Minister of Aircraft Production

In November 1942, Cripps stepped down from being Leader of the House of Commons and was appointed Minister of Aircraft Production, a position outside the War Cabinet in which he served with substantial success until May 1945, when the wartime coalition ended. [17] A supporter of Air Chief Marshal Harris's strategic bombing campaign against Germany, Cripps stated in a July 1943 broadcast that "the more we ... can destroy from the air the industrial and transport facilities of the Axis, the weaker will become his resistance. ... The heavier our air attack, the lighter will be the total of our casualties". [17]

Cripps was unhappy with the British black propaganda campaign against Germany. When Cripps discovered details of the German radio work of Sefton Delmer (through the intervention of Richard Crossman) he wrote to Anthony Eden, then Foreign Secretary: "If this is the sort of thing that is needed to win the war, why, I'd rather lose it." Delmer was defended by Robert Bruce Lockhart who pointed out the need to reach the sadist in the German nature. [18]

In February 1945, Cripps rejoined the Labour Party. [19]

After the war


When Labour won the 1945 general election, Clement Attlee appointed Cripps President of the Board of Trade, the second most important economic post in the government. Although still a strong socialist, Cripps had modified his views sufficiently to be able to work with mainstream Labour ministers. In Britain's desperate post-war economic circumstances, Cripps became associated with the policy of "austerity". As an upper-class socialist, he held a puritanical view of society, enforcing rationing with equal severity against all classes. Together with other individuals, he was instrumental in the foundation of the original College of Aeronautics, now Cranfield University, in 1946. The Stafford Cripps Learning and Teaching Centre on Cranfield's campus is named after him. [20]

In 1946, Soviet jet engine designers approached Stalin with a request to buy jet designs from Western sources to overcome design difficulties. Stalin is said to have replied: "What fool will sell us his secrets?" However, he gave his assent to the proposal, and Soviet scientists and designers travelled to the United Kingdom to meet Cripps and request the engines. To Stalin's amazement, Cripps and the Labour government were willing to provide technical information on the Rolls-Royce Nene centrifugal-flow jet engine designed by RAF officer Frank Whittle, along with discussions of a licence to manufacture Nene engines. The Nene engine was promptly reverse-engineered and produced in modified form as the Soviet Klimov VK-1 jet engine, later incorporated into the MiG-15 which flew in time to deploy in combat against UN forces in North Korea in 1950, causing the loss of several B-29 bombers and cancellation of their daylight bombing missions over North Korea. [21] Ironically, a US fighter Aircraft that fought the M15 was the Grumman F9F Panther which was equipped with the US Version of the Nene-Pratt & Whitney J42

Also in 1946, Cripps returned to India as part of the Cabinet Mission, which proposed formulae for independence to the Indian leaders. The other two members of the delegation were Lord Pethick-Lawrence, the Secretary of State for India, and A. V. Alexander, the First Lord of the Admiralty. However, the solution devised by the three men, known as the Cabinet Mission Plan, was unsatisfactory to the Indian National Congress mainly its principal leaders, and instead of having to hold together the emerging one nation, Indian National Congress leaders travelled further down the road that eventually led to Partition.

In 1947, amid a growing economic and political crisis, Cripps tried to persuade Attlee to retire in favour of Ernest Bevin; however, Bevin was in favour of Attlee remaining. Cripps was instead appointed to the new post of Minister for Economic Affairs. Six weeks later Hugh Dalton resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Cripps succeeded him, with the position of Minister for Economic Affairs now merged into the Chancellorship. He increased taxes and continued strategic rationing which muted consumption to boost the balance of trade and stabilise the Pound Sterling seeing Britain trade its way out of a real risk of fiscal and economic gloom. He was among those who brought about the nationalisation of strategic industries such as coal and steel. [22]

Amid financial problems from 1948 to 1949, Cripps maintained a high level of social spending on housing, health, and other welfare services, while also maintaining the location of industry policy. Personal incomes and free time continued to rise, as characterised by cricket and football enjoying unprecedented booms, together with the holiday camps, the dance hall, and the cinema. [23] In his last budget as Chancellor (1950), the housebuilding programme was restored to 200,000 per annum (after having previously been reduced due to government austerity measures), income tax was reduced for low-income earners as an overtime incentive, [24] and spending on health, national insurance, and education was increased. [25]

During the period Cripps imposed harsh foreign currency restrictions on private and commercial travellers, he was paying for his grandchildren's Swiss boarding school and for both his daughter's and his own Swiss sanitorium. [26] [27]

Cripps had suffered for many years from colitis, inflammation of the lower bowel; a condition aggravated by stress. In 1950, his health broke down and he was forced to resign his office in October. He resigned from Parliament the same month, and at the resulting by-election on 30 November he was succeeded as the MP for Bristol South East by Anthony Wedgwood Benn.

Personal life

Cripps was the sororal nephew of Beatrice Webb and Catherine Courtney. His mother died when he was four years old. His stepmother, Marian Ellis, had a profound influence on him. He was married to Isobel Swithinbank, who became the Honourable Lady Cripps, daughter of Harold William Swithinbank, better known as Dame Isobel Cripps (1891–1979), and had four children

Cripps was a vegetarian, certainly for health reasons and possibly also for ethical reasons. "Cripps suffered from recurring illness which was alleviated by nature cure and a vegetarian diet...". [32] His male-line descendants are in remainder to the barony Parmoor. In 1989, a Blue Plaque was unveiled at 32 Elm Park Gardens, Chelsea to mark the site of Cripps' birth. [33]

Death

Cripps died of cancer on 21 April 1952 while in Zürich, Switzerland 3 days shy of his 63rd birthday. He was cremated at Sihlfeld Crematorium in Zürich. His ashes are buried in the churchyard in Sapperton, Gloucestershire, and his wife is buried beside him. [34]

The Stafford Cripps estate on Gee Street in the former Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury is named in his honour; the three blocks are called Parmoor, Sapperton and Cotswold, after the Cripps family title and Sir Stafford Cripps resting place.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Schuster, George (1955). "Richard Stafford Cripps 1889–1952". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society . 1: 11–26. doi: 10.1098/rsbm.1955.0003 . JSTOR   769240.
  2. 1 2 Mitchell, Andrew (2002) "Cripps, (Richard) Stafford" in John Ramsden, ed., The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century British Politics. ISBN   0198601344. p. 176
  3. Peter Clarke; Clive Trebilcock (1997). Understanding Decline: Perceptions and Realities of British Economic Performance. Cambridge University Press. p. 193. ISBN   9780521563178.
  4. Catherine Hurley, ed. (2003). Could do Better . Simon & Schuster UK Pocket Books. ISBN   978-0743450256.
  5. Busch, Noel F. (8 March 1948). "Sir Stafford Cripps". Life. p. 134.
  6. 1 2 Keesing's Contemporary Archives, Volume VIII-IX, (April 1952) p. 12158
  7. Chris Bryant, Stafford Cripps (1997), pp. 71–75.
  8. Peter Clarke, The Cripps Version (2002) pp. 39-54.
  9. Peter Clarke, The Cripps Version (2002) pp. 55–67.
  10. Cowling, Maurice (2005) The Impact of Hitler. British Politics and British Policies, 1933–1940. Cambridge University Press, ISBN   052101929X. p. 215
  11. The Times (15 March 1937), p. 21.
  12. David Marquand, "Sir Stafford Cripps" in Michael Sissons & Philip French, Age of Austerity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 157–175.
  13. Horsley, David (2019). Billy Strachan 1921-1988 RAF Officer, Communist, Civil Rights Pioneer, Legal Administrator, Internationalist and Above All Caribbean Man. London: Caribbean Labour Solidarity. pp. 7–8. ISSN   2055-7035.
  14. Cooke, Colin (1957). The Life of Richard Stafford Cripps. Hodder & Stoughton, London. pp. 270–279.
  15. Paul Addison (2011). The Road To 1945: British Politics and the Second World War (2nd ed.). Random House. pp. 238–39. ISBN   9781446424216.
  16. Nicholas Owen, "The Cripps mission of 1942: A reinterpretation." The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 30.1 (2002): 61-98. https://doi.org/10.1080/03086530208583134
  17. 1 2 Clarke, Peter (2002). The Cripps Version. Allen Lane. The Penguin Press, London. p. 373. ISBN   0-713-99390-1.
  18. Richards, Lee (2007) Sir Stafford Cripps and the German Admiral's Orgy Archived 17 January 2007 at the Wayback Machine , PsyWar.Org
  19. Estorick, Eric (1949). Stafford Cripps. A biography. William Heinemann, London. p. 326.
  20. "Venue Cranfield Stafford Cripps Centre".
  21. Gordon, Yefim (2001) Mikoyan-Gurevich MIG-15: The Soviet Union's Long-Lived Korean War Fighter. Midland Press. ISBN   1857801059
  22. Cooke, Colin (1957). The Life of Richard Stafford Cripps. Hodder & Stoughton, London. pp. 350–365.
  23. Morgan, Kenneth (1985) Labour in Power, 1945–51. OUP Oxford. ISBN   0192851500
  24. Pelling, Henry (1984) The Labour Governments, 1945–51. Macmillan. ISBN   0333363566
  25. Pritt, Denis Nowell (1963) The Labour Government 1945–51. Lawrence & Wishart
  26. Tucker, Nicholas (2010). "Appiah [née Cripps], Enid Margaret [Peggy] (1921–2006), anthologist and charity worker" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/97035.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  27. "Stafford Cripps | Making Britain".
  28. 1 2 "Confirmed Swithinbank as maiden name of John S Cripps from ancestry.co.uk.
  29. Hayes, Denis (1949), Challenge of Conscience, p 76
  30. "Sir Tristram Ricketts, Bt". The Telegraph. 17 November 2007. Retrieved 6 June 2010.[ dead link ]
  31. Brozan, Nadine (16 February 2006) "Peggy Appiah, 84, Author Who Bridged Two Cultures, Dies". The New York Times
  32. Twigg, Julia (1981). The Vegetarian Movement in England, 1847–1981: A Study of the Structure of Its Ideology (Ph.D.). London School of Economics. pp. 247, 292.
  33. "English Heritage Blue Plaques scheme" . Retrieved 30 January 2019.
  34. Peter Clarke, The Cripps Version (2002) pp. 536–598.

Further reading

Primary sources

  • Cripps, Richard Stafford, and Gabriel Gorodetsky. Stafford Cripps in Moscow, 1940–1942: diaries and papers (Vallentine Mitchell, 2007).
  • British War Cabinet; Sir Stafford Cripps. "Assessment On Soviet German Relations By British War Cabinet 16 July 1941" Cripps' assessment of possible war between Germany and the USSR. online
  • Mansergh, Nicholas, ed. Constitutional Relations between Britain and India: The Transfer of Power, 1942–1947: Vol 1. The Cripps Mission (1970), contains all the key documents.
Sir Stafford Cripps
Stafford Cripps 1947.jpg
Chancellor of the Exchequer
In office
13 November 1947 19 October 1950
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Bristol East
19311950
Constituency abolished
New constituency Member of Parliament for Bristol South East
1950Oct. 1950
Succeeded by
Legal offices
Preceded by Solicitor General for England and Wales
1931
Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by Leader of the House of Commons
1942
Succeeded by
Preceded by Lord Privy Seal
1942
Succeeded by
Preceded by Minister of Aircraft Production
1942–1945
Succeeded by
Preceded by President of the Board of Trade
1945–1947
Succeeded by
New office Minister for Economic Affairs
1947
office abolished
Preceded by Chancellor of the Exchequer
1947–1950
Succeeded by
Party political offices
Preceded by Chairman of the Socialist League
1933–1936
Succeeded by
Preceded by President of the Fabian Society
1951–1952
Succeeded by
Academic offices
Preceded by Rector of the University of Aberdeen
1942–1945
Succeeded by