Manny Shinwell

The Right Honourable The Lord Shinwell CH PC
Shinwell in the 1940s
Minister of Defence
In office 28 February 1950 – 26 October 1951
Prime Minister	Clement Attlee
Preceded by	A. V. Alexander
Succeeded by	Winston Churchill
Secretary of State for War
In office 7 October 1947 – 28 February 1950
Prime Minister	Clement Attlee
Preceded by	Frederick Bellenger
Succeeded by	John Strachey
Minister of Fuel and Power
In office 3 August 1945 – 7 October 1947
Prime Minister	Clement Attlee
Preceded by	Gwilym Lloyd George
Succeeded by	Hugh Gaitskell
Secretary for Mines
In office 5 June 1930 – 3 September 1931
Prime Minister	Ramsay MacDonald
Preceded by	Ben Turner
Succeeded by	Isaac Foot
In office 23 January 1924 – 11 November 1924
Prime Minister	Ramsay MacDonald
Preceded by	George Lane-Fox
Succeeded by	George Lane-Fox
Financial Secretary to the War Office
In office 11 June 1929 – 5 June 1930
Prime Minister	Ramsay MacDonald
Preceded by	Duff Cooper
Succeeded by	William Sanders
Parliamentary offices Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal Life peerage 29 June 1970 – 8 May 1986 Member of Parliament for Easington (Seaham 1935–1950) In office 14 November 1935 – 29 May 1970 Preceded by Ramsay MacDonald Succeeded by Jack Dormand Member of Parliament for Linlithgowshire In office 4 April 1928 – 7 October 1931 Preceded by James Kidd Succeeded by Adrian Baillie In office 15 November 1922 – 9 October 1924 Preceded by James Kidd Succeeded by James Kidd
Personal details
Born	Emanuel Shinwell (1884-10-18)18 October 1884 Spitalfields, London, England
Died	8 May 1986(1986-05-08) (aged 101) London, England
Political party	Labour
Spouses	Fanny Freeman ​ ​ (m. 1903; died 1954)​ Dinah Meyer ​ ​ (m. 1956; died 1971)​ Sarah Sturgo ​ ​ (m. 1972; died 1977)​
Children	4

Emanuel Shinwell, Baron Shinwell, CH, PC (18 October 1884 – 8 May 1986) was a British politician who served as a government minister under Ramsay MacDonald and Clement Attlee. A member of the Labour Party, he served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for 40 years, representing Linlithgowshire, Seaham and Easington.

Born in the East End of London to a large family of Jewish immigrants, Shinwell moved to Glasgow as a boy and left school at the age of eleven. He became a trade union organiser and one of the leading figures of Red Clydeside. He was imprisoned in 1919 for his alleged involvement in the disturbances in Glasgow in January of that year. He served as a Labour MP from 1922 to 1924, and from a by-election in 1928 until 1931, and held junior office in the minority Labour Governments of 1924 and 1929–1931. He returned to the House of Commons in 1935, defeating former UK Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, who by that time had been expelled from the Labour Party. During the Second World War, he was a leading backbencher critic of the Coalition Government.

Shinwell is perhaps best remembered as the Minister of Fuel and Power in the Attlee ministry that nationalised coal mining in 1946. He was in charge of Britain's coal supply during the extremely harsh winter of January to March 1947, during which the supply system collapsed, leaving the United Kingdom to freeze and close down. He became unpopular with the public and was sacked in October 1947. He then served as Secretary of State for War, and then as Minister of Defence from 1950 to 1951. The high defence spending which he demanded, partly to pay for British involvement in the Korean War, was a major factor causing then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Gaitskell to impose NHS charges, prompting the resignation of Aneurin Bevan from the Cabinet.

After Labour's defeat in 1951, Shinwell continued to serve in the Shadow Cabinet in Opposition until he stepped down in 1955. Thereafter he was a senior backbencher until 1970, by which time he was in his mid-eighties. That year he accepted a life peerage and was an active member of the House of Lords until shortly before his death, aged 101, in 1986.