This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Stafford Cripps" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR(January 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
The Right Honourable Sir
Stafford Cripps
CH QC FRS
Chancellor of the Exchequer
In office 13 November 1947 – 19 October 1950
Prime Minister
Clement Attlee
Preceded by
Hugh Dalton
Succeeded by
Hugh Gaitskell
Minister for Economic Affairs
In office 29 September 1947 – 13 November 1947
Prime Minister
Clement Attlee
Preceded by
New creation
Succeeded by
Post abolished (Trial post)
President of the Board of Trade
In office 27 July 1945 – 29 September 1947
Prime Minister
Clement Attlee
Preceded by
Oliver Lyttelton
Succeeded by
Harold Wilson
Minister of Aircraft Production
In office 22 November 1942 – 25 May 1945
Prime Minister
Winston Churchill
Preceded by
John Llewellin
Succeeded by
Ernest Brown
Leader of the House of Commons Lord Privy Seal
In office 19 February 1942 – 22 November 1942
Prime Minister
Winston Churchill
Preceded by
Winston Churchill (as Leader of the House of Commons) Clement Attlee (as Lord Privy Seal)
Succeeded by
Anthony Eden (as Leader of the House of Commons) Robert Gascoyne-Cecil (as Lord Privy Seal)
Solicitor General for England and Wales
In office 22 October 1930 – 24 August 1931
Prime Minister
James Ramsay MacDonald
Preceded by
James Melville
Succeeded by
Thomas Inskip
Member of Parliament for Bristol South East Bristol East (1931–1950)
In office 16 January 1931 – 25 October 1950
Preceded by
Walter John Baker
Succeeded by
Tony Benn
Personal details
Born
Richard Stafford Cripps[1]
(1889-04-24)24 April 1889 Chelsea, London, England
Died
21 April 1952(1952-04-21) (aged 62) Zürich, Switzerland
Political party
Labour
Other political affiliations
Popular Front
Spouse
Dame Isobel Cripps
Children
4, including Peggy Cripps
Parent(s)
Charles Cripps Theresa Potter
Relatives
Kwame Anthony Appiah (grandson)
Alma mater
University College London
Sir Richard Stafford CrippsCH QC FRS[1] (24 April 1889 – 21 April 1952) was a British Labour Party politician, barrister, and diplomat.
A wealthy lawyer by background, he first entered Parliament at a by-election in January 1931, and was one of a handful of Labour frontbenchers to retain his seat at the October general election that year. He became a leading spokesman for the left-wing and for co-operation in a Popular Front with Communists before 1939, in which year the Labour Party expelled him. During this time he became intimately involved with Krishna Menon and the India League.
During World War II (1939-1945), he served from May 1940 to January 1942 as Ambassador to the USSR, during which time he grew wary of the Soviet Union,[citation needed] but achieved great public popularity because, on being invaded by Nazi Germany in 1941, the USSR aligned itself with the other Allies with the aim of restoring peace; this caused some[who?] in 1942 to see Cripps as a potential rival to Winston Churchill for the UK premiership. He became a member of the War Cabinet of the wartime coalition, but failed in his efforts (the 1942 "Cripps Mission") to resolve the wartime crisis in India - his proposals were too radical for Churchill and the Cabinet, and too conservative for Mahatma Gandhi and other Indian leaders, but nonetheless he kept the trust and friendship of V. K. Krishna Menon, allowing him to retain a role in Indian affairs, including as a member of the 1946 Cabinet Mission to India and, ultimately, in the selection of the final Viceroy in 1947. From November 1942 he served as Minister of Aircraft Production, an important post, but one outside the inner War Cabinet.[2]
Cripps rejoined the Labour Party in February 1945, and after the war he served in the 1945-1951 Attlee ministry, first as President of the Board of Trade and between 1947 and 1950 as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Labour Party member and historian Kenneth O. Morgan claimed of his role in the latter position that he was "the real architect of the rapidly improving economic picture and growing affluence from 1952 onwards".[3]
The economy improved after 1947, benefiting from American money given through grants from the Marshall Plan as well as from loans. However, the pound had to be devalued in 1949. Cripps kept the wartime rationing-system in place to hold down consumption during an "age of austerity", promoted exports and maintained full employment with static wages. The public especially respected "his integrity, competence, and Christian principles".[2]
^ abSchuster, 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.
^ abMitchell, Andrew (2002) "Cripps, (Richard) Stafford" in John Ramsden, ed., The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century British Politics. ISBN 0198601344. p. 176
^Peter Clarke; Clive Trebilcock (1997). Understanding Decline: Perceptions and Realities of British Economic Performance. Cambridge University Press. p. 193. ISBN 9780521563178.
Sir Richard StaffordCripps CH QC FRS (24 April 1889 – 21 April 1952) was a British Labour Party politician, barrister, and diplomat. A wealthy lawyer...
efforts in World War II. The mission was headed by a senior minister StaffordCripps. Cripps belonged to the left-wing Labour Party, which was traditionally...
socialite. She was the daughter of the Right Honourable Sir StaffordCripps and Dame Isobel Cripps, the wife of Ghanaian lawyer and political activist Nana...
between management and workers, with Cripps making over five hundred visits to factories in order to meet staff. Cripps left the Ministry on 23 May 1945 when...
Dame Isobel Cripps, GBE (née Swithinbank; 25 January 1891 – 11 April 1979), also known as Isobel, the Honourable Lady Cripps, was a British overseas aid...
of government to retain their seats, along with George Lansbury and StaffordCripps. Accordingly, Lansbury was elected Leader unopposed with Attlee as...
Sarah Cripps Sir StaffordCripps, British politician (1889–1952) William Cripps (d. 1848), British politician William Harrison Cripps (1850–1923), British...
married surgeon William Harrison Cripps, brother to Theresa's husband Charles Cripps, 1st Baron Parmoor. The Cripps family was a wealthy political family...
Relations Office. September 1947 – Sir StaffordCripps becomes Minister of Economic Affairs. Harold Wilson succeeds Cripps as President of the Board of Trade...
a delegation to India under StaffordCripps, the Leader of the House of Commons, in what came to be known as the Cripps Mission. The purpose of the mission...
members, Lord Pethick-Lawrence (Secretary of State for India), Sir StaffordCripps (President of the Board of Trade), and A. V. Alexander (First Lord...
Morrison and Cripps intrigued to replace Attlee with Bevin as Prime Minister; Bevin refused to play along, and Attlee bought off Cripps by giving him...
India, Winston Churchill, then Britain's prime minister, sent Sir StaffordCripps, leader of the House of Commons, with an offer of dominion status to...
leading up to the disaster and Cripps argued the Inspectorate had an interest in turning a blind eye to safety failings. Cripps went so far as to describe...
Major the Hon. Leonard Harrison Cripps, third son of the first Baron. The Labour politician the Hon. Sir StaffordCripps was the youngest son of the first...
as the Cripps question, this way of formulating the issue of inventive step in English law was deployed for many years thereafter. The Cripps question...
in the Attlee ministry of 1945–51. Attlee, Morrison, Ernest Bevin, StaffordCripps, and initially Hugh Dalton formed the "Big Five" who dominated those...
tried to warn Joseph Stalin via the British ambassador to Moscow, StaffordCripps, but to no avail as Stalin did not trust Churchill. The night before...
– Pe Maung Tin, Burma-based scholar and educator (d. 1973) 1889 – StaffordCripps, English academic and politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer (d. 1952)...
followed their exploits.” In March 1942, Churchill sent StaffordCripps on a mission to India ("the Cripps Mission") with an offer based on full Dominion status...
several other members had spoken, including David Lloyd George and StaffordCripps, the House divided on the question: "That this House welcomes the formation...
Exchequer StaffordCripps' worries that Treasury officials were too "liberal" and too reluctant to implement socialist measures. Like Cripps and Dalton...
November 1942 – 26 July 1945 Prime Minister Winston Churchill Preceded by StaffordCripps Succeeded by Herbert Morrison Secretary of State for War In office...
Henry Addington for the Tory Party; Robert Lowe for the Liberal Party; StaffordCripps and Hugh Gaitskell for the Labour Party; and Geoffrey Howe and Rishi...
James. In a foreword to Africa and World Peace, Labour politician Sir StaffordCripps wrote: "George Padmore has performed another great service of enlightenment...
Global Information
