Cabinet minister to honour former Labour leader
PA175/04 — December 06 2004
A current cabinet minister is to deliver a lecture in memory of a former leader of the Labour Party, who taught at University College, Nottingham, in the 1920s.
The Rt Hon Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for International Development, will give the annual Gaitskell Memorial Lecture at The University of Nottingham.
Hugh Gaitskell was leader of the Labour Party from 1955 until his death in 1963. Educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, he first became interested in politics as a result of the General Strike of 1926.
In 1927 he joined the Department of Adult Education at University College, Nottingham, and lectured on economics to local miners, as part of courses organised jointly by the University and the Workers Educational Association.
He became a Labour MO in 1945, and was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Attlee Government of 1950. His election as leader coincided with one of the Labour Party's leanest periods, and he is regarded by some as "the best Prime Minister we never had."
Hilary Benn's lecture is titled 'Learning to live with each other: Education and International Development'. It will be given in Lecture Theatre One in the Exchange Building at Jubilee Campus, at 6pm on Wednesday December 8.
Members of the public are welcome to attend.
The Gaitskell Memorial Lecture, was founded in his memory by his colleagues and has been held annually ever since.
It always highlights a topical political or economic theme and former speakers have included Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, and David Blunkett.
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