Aneurin Bevan

Aneurin Bevan was born on 15 November 1897 at 32 Charles Street in Tredegar, Monmouthshire, a working-class mining town, where an estimated 90 per cent of the town's inhabitants relied on the local mines for employment.[1] The town was situated in the South Wales Valleys and was on the northern edge of the South Wales coalfield. He was the son of coal miner David Bevan and Phoebe (née Prothero), a seamstress. David Bevan was born in Tredegar but his family had originally hailed from Carmarthenshire, and he followed his own father into the mines, starting work at 5:30am each day and returning home late in the evening. He was adept at construction and added several modern features when the family moved to 7 Charles Street, installing the first gas stove in the street, an inside toilet and running hot water.[1]

Both Bevan's parents were Nonconformists: his father was a Baptist and his mother a Methodist, although he became an atheist. Bevan had been a supporter of the Liberal Party in his youth, but was converted to socialism by the writings of Robert Blatchford in The Clarion and joined the Independent Labour Party. It was around this time that he first "reject[ed] his chapel upbringing" and became an atheist.[2] He was a member of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion and wrote his own poems, one of which won an inter-chapel eisteddfod. Aneurin's mother was also from Tredegar, but had English roots: her grandfather was from Hereford. Bevan's maternal grandfather John was a blacksmith who had moved to Tredegar from Hay-on-Wye to work in the Bedwellty mines.[1][3]

The couple had ten children altogether—six boys and four girls—although four died in infancy and one died at the age of eight.[4] Aneurin Bevan attended Sirhowy Elementary School, where he achieved little. He developed a severe stammer as a child and, according to his younger sister Myfanwy, became "a lonely chap", due to the need to shy away from the attention it brought him.[5]

His father died by pneumoconiosis (a lung condition caused by long term inhalation of coal dust) but no compensation was paid to him, as it was not classed as an industrial disease under the Workmen's Compensation Act.

At the age of 13, in his last months of schooling, he worked as a butcher's boy at a local store.[6] He worked at the butcher's for several months before leaving school, instead working in the local Ty-Trist Colliery. There he earned around ten shillings per week with most going to his parents to help support the family. He began attending fortnightly meetings of the local Plebs' League where he studied, among other things, Marxism.[5] Bevan also joined the Tredegar branch of the South Wales Miners' Federation and became a trade union activist: he was head of his local Miners' Lodge at 19 years of age. He was called up for service during the First World War, and was briefly arrested when his sister Blodwen burnt his conscription papers and he failed to report for duty. Bevan appeared in court but was cleared when he produced confirmation that he suffered from nystagmus.[7]

Bevan became a well-known local orator and was seen by his employers, the Tredegar Iron and Coal Company, as a troublemaker. The manager of the colliery found an excuse to get him dismissed. With the support of the Miners' Federation, the case was judged as one of victimisation and the company was forced to re-employ him.[8][9] He and his brother Billy did eventually leave Ty-Tryst and worked at the Bedwellty pit, but were forced to move again after a disagreement with the site's deputy manager over Bevan reporting information to the miner's inspector. The pair went to work at Whitworth Colliery, but fell foul of management when Bevan refused to use cheaper second-hand timber as he deemed it unsafe. He was later fired for refusing to unload, and successfully challenged the motion but was moved to Pochin, generally considered a punishment due to the poor site conditions.[10]

1919 saw the foundation of the Tredegar Labour Party and Bevan was selected as one of four Labour delegates to contest the West Ward in the Tredegar Urban District election. Although he was defeated, he gained attention from his peers and he won a scholarship to the Central Labour College in London, sponsored by the South Wales Miners' Federation. There, he spent two years studying economics, politics and history. He read Marxism at the college and was a brief follower of Noah Ablett,[11][12] developing his left-wing political outlook. Reciting long passages by William Morris with the help of an elocution tutor, Bevan gradually began to overcome the stammer that he had since childhood.[11] Bevan remained at the college until 1921, attending at a time when a number of his contemporaries from South Wales, including Jim Griffiths, were also students at the college. Some historians have questioned how influential the college was on his political development. He was not, apparently, one of the most diligent students, and found it difficult to follow an organised routine, including arising early for breakfast.[13]

The Tredegar Query Club by friends including Aneurin Bevan and Walter Conway. Conway is in the middle of the picture. Aneurin is second from right on the back row and his brother Billy is second right on front row.[14]

Bevan was one of the founding members of the "Query Club" with his brother Billy and Walter Conway. Conway was a local miner who had been elected to the Bedwellty Board of Guardians and offered Bevan advice on overcoming his stammer, stating "if you can't say it, you don't know it". Bevan followed his advice, often practising his speeches to his friends to perfect his speech and wording, and remarked that Conway's words were the "best advice I ever had".[10] The Query club started in 1920 or 1921 and they met in Tredegar. They would collect money weekly for any member who needed it. The club intended to break the hold that the Tredegar Iron and Coal Company had on the town by becoming members of pivotal groups in the community.[14]

Upon returning home in 1921, he found that the Tredegar Iron and Coal Company refused to re-employ him. Bevan ended up in a fist fight with a group of miners who refused to strike over his rejection.[15] Apart from a six-week period as a labourer for Tredegar Council, he did not find work until 1924 and his employer, the Bedwellty Colliery, closed down ten months later. Bevan then endured another year of unemployment, the family surviving on his sister's wages, when his unemployment benefit was stopped due to her income, and his father's sick pay. In February 1925, his father died of pneumoconiosis, an illness caused by the inhalation of coal dust.[16][17] In 1926 he found work as a paid union official. His wage of £5 a week was paid by the members of the local Miners' Lodge. His new job arrived in time for him to head the local miners against the colliery companies during the General Strike. When the strike started on 3 May 1926, Bevan soon emerged as one of the leaders of the South Wales miners.[9] The miners remained on strike for six months. Bevan was largely responsible for the distribution of strike pay in Tredegar and the formation of the Council of Action, an organisation that helped to raise money and provide food for the miners.[18]

The 1945 general election resulted in a landslide victory for the Labour Party, giving it a large enough majority to allow the implementation of the party's manifesto commitments and to introduce a programme of far-reaching social reforms, that were collectively dubbed the "Welfare State".[57][58] These reforms were achieved in the face of great financial difficulty following the war. The new Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, appointed Bevan as Minister of Health, with a remit that also covered housing. Thus, the responsibility for instituting a new and comprehensive National Health Service, as well as tackling the country's severe post-war housing shortage, was given to Bevan, the youngest member of Attlee's Cabinet in his first ministerial position at the age of 47.[22] Although described in The Times as "an outstanding back-bench critic" and "one of (Labour's) most brilliant members in debate", his appointment was regarded as a relative surprise, given his previous disciplinary issues.[59] Bevan had clashed frequently with Attlee during his time as an MP, believing that the Labour leader failed to apply enough pressure on the Tory government during the war. He had also seen disputes with some of Attlee's closest allies, Ernest Bevin and Herbert Morrison, who were appointed Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House respectively. However, Attlee commented that Bevan was "starting with me with a clean sheet" following his appointment.[60] Bevan tested this newfound solidarity early on by arriving to a royal banquet at St James's Palace wearing a navy lounge suit.[60] He earned a rebuke from Attlee, but Bevan contended that his Welsh mining constituency did not send him to Parliament to "dress up", and he declined to wear formal attire at further Buckingham Palace functions.[61]

Minister of Health (1945–1951)

Bevan talking to a patient at Park Hospital, Manchester, the day the NHS came into being.

The free National Health Service was paid for directly through public money. Bevan had been inspired by the Tredegar Medical Aid Society in his hometown, where residents would pay a subscription that would fund access for all of the town's inhabitants to have free access to medical services such as nursing or dental care.[62] This system proved so popular that 20,000 people supported the organisation during the 1930s. In 1947, Bevan stated "All I am doing is extending to the entire population of Britain the benefits we had in Tredegar for a generation or more. We are going to Tredegar-ise you."[62] Government income was increased for the welfare state expenditure by a large increase in marginal tax rates for wealthy business owners in particular, as part of what the Labour government largely saw as the redistribution of the wealth created by the working-class from the owners of large-scale industry to the workers.[63] Having been a member of the Cottage Hospital Management Committee around 1928 and serving as chairman in 1929–30, Bevan had received an insight into the management of health services by local authorities, which proved to be a bedrock of his work in founding the National Health Service.[48]

The collective principle asserts that ... no society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.

— Aneurin Bevan, In Place of Fear, p. 100

On the 'appointed day', 5 July 1948, Bevan's National Health Service Act 1946 came into force. On the day, Bevan attended a ceremony at the Park Hospital, Trafford (now Trafford General), at which he symbolically received the keys to the hospital.[64] The scheme was achieved having overcome political opposition from both the Conservative Party and from within his own party. Confrontation with the British Medical Association (BMA) was led by Charles Hill, who published a letter in the British Medical Journal describing Bevan as "a complete and uncontrolled dictator". Members of the BMA had dubbed him the "Tito of Tonypandy".[48][65] They threatened to derail the National Health Service scheme before it had even begun, as medical practitioners continued to withhold their support just months before the launch of the service. After eighteen months of ongoing dispute between the Ministry of Health and the BMA, Bevan finally managed to win over the support of the vast majority of the medical profession by offering a couple of minor concessions, including allowing consultants to keep their own private practices and continuing to allow doctors to be paid in capitation fees rather than salaries,[66] but without compromising the fundamental principles of his National Health Service proposals. At a dinner in late 1955 or early 1956 to celebrate the publication of the Guillebaud Report into NHS costs Bevan remarked to Julian Tudor Hart "ultimately I had to stuff their mouths with gold" about his handling of the consultants. This is often quoted as "I stuffed their mouths with gold".[67][65] Some 2,688 voluntary and municipal hospitals in England and Wales were nationalised and came under Bevan's supervisory control as Health Minister. Two of the key elements of Bevan's proposals were this nationalisation of the hospital services and the abolition of the sale and purchase of goodwill by general practitioners. The former aimed to provide a uniform standard of consultant led care and expertise throughout the country and to replace the patchwork of voluntary and municipal hospitals which existed at that point. The latter – sale and purchase of goodwill – often placed new entrants to the GP profession under large amounts of debt. Along with this, the Medical Practices Committee was to oversee the distribution of GP practices – a proposal which the previous Coalition Minister had withdrawn after opposition from the British Medical Association.

Bevan said:

The National Health Service and the Welfare State have come to be used as interchangeable terms, and in the mouths of some people as terms of reproach. Why this is so it is not difficult to understand, if you view everything from the angle of a strictly individualistic competitive society. A free health service is pure Socialism and as such it is opposed to the hedonism of capitalist society.[68]

— Aneurin Bevan, In Place of Fear, p. 81

Conservative opposition of the National Health Service scheme feared that the sudden access to free health care would be overrun. In its early stages this proved true, as the service went vastly over budget in its inaugural year, and Attlee was forced to make a radio address to the nation in an attempt to limit the strain on the system. Bevan countered that the initial overspending was down to years of underinvestment in the British medical system prior to the Second World War: by the start of the 1950s, the early overspending had come to an end.[65]

Housing reform

Statue of Bevan in Cardiff by Robert Thomas

When Bevan was made a minister in 1945, he envisaged the social housing sector as a housing service similar to the National Health Service, ensuring that everyone had access to decent and affordable homes, with people still having the option to live in owner occupation or the private sector if they so chose (with grants made available to owner-occupiers and private landlords to bring dwellings up to decent standards).[69][70] The removal of the criteria of "working class" from local authority housing provision was seen as a first step, widening access to the council housing that was becoming an ever larger part of the UK housing stock and which made up a majority of new homes built after the war.[70][71] The aim was to create new homes and communities with a place for all sections of society :

We should try to introduce in our modern villages and towns what was always the lovely feature of English and Welsh villages, where the doctor, the grocer, the butcher and the farm labourer all lived in the same street. I believe that is essential for the full life of citizen ... to see the living tapestry of a mixed community.[72]

— Aneurin Bevan, Parliament speech, 1949[73]

Substantial bombing damage, with over 700,000 homes needing repair in London alone,[74] and the continued existence of pre-war slums in many parts of the country made the task of housing reform particularly challenging for Bevan. Indeed, these factors, exacerbated by post-war restrictions on the availability of building materials and skilled labour, collectively served to limit Bevan's achievements in this area. Bevan was also limited due to his desire for new homes to be bigger and of better quality than the ones they were being built to replace, based on the recommendations of a 1943 report by the Dudley Committee, and a shortage of skilled workers to undertake the work.[75][76][77] 1946 saw the completion of 55,600 new homes; this rose to 139,600 in 1947 and 227,600 in 1948. While this was not an insignificant achievement – the 850,000 homes built in the four years immediately after the war ended was the biggest housing programme ever introduced[78] – Bevan's rate of house-building was exceeded by his Conservative (indirect) successor, Harold Macmillan, who was able to complete some 300,000 new homes a year as Minister for Housing in the 1950s. These numbers were reached by lowering the quality standards originally put forward by Bevan, with council houses featuring gardens being largely dropped in favour of tower blocks and flats.[75][79] Macmillan was also able to concentrate full-time on the housing crisis, instead of being obliged, like Bevan, to combine his housing portfolio with that for Health (which for Bevan took the higher priority: he once stated tongue-in-cheek that he devoted "five minutes a week to housing").[80]

At a party rally in 1948, during a speech, Bevan stated: "That is why no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party that inflicted those bitter experiences on me. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin. They condemned millions of first-class people to semi-starvation."[81] The comment inspired the creation of the Vermin Club by angry Conservatives, who attacked Bevan for years for the metaphor. Labour Party deputy leader Herbert Morrison complained that Bevan's attack had backfired, for his words "did much more to make the Tories work and vote ... than Conservative Central Office could have done".[82] It was later claimed that his words had cost Labour more than two million votes.[45]

In 1951, with the retirement of Ernest Bevin, Bevan was a leading candidate for Foreign Secretary. Prime Minister Attlee rejected Bevan in favour of Herbert Morrison because he distrusted Bevan's personality. In his biography of Bevan, John Campbell wrote, "Bevan's impetuous temperament, undiplomatic tone and reputation as an extreme left-winger combined to make the Foreign Office seem the last place a prudent Prime Minister would think of putting him at any time. His "vermin" speech still resonated: imagination shuddered at a repetition of that on the international stage."[83]

Aneurin Bevan speaking in Corwen in 1952

Bevan's last decade saw his political position weaken year by year as he failed to find a winning issue that would make use of his skills.[93] In 1952 Bevan published In Place of Fear,[94] "the most widely read socialist book" of the period, according to a highly critical right-wing Labour MP Anthony Crosland.[95] According to The Times Literary Supplement, the book was a "dithyramb with meanderings into the many side-tracks of Mr Bevan's private and public experience".[96] In the opening page of the book, Bevan begins: "A young miner in a South Wales colliery, my concern was with the one practical question: Where does power lie in this particular state of Great Britain, and how can it be attained by the workers?"[97]

In March 1952, a poorly prepared Bevan came off the worse in an evening Commons debate on health with Conservative backbencher Iain Macleod, whose performance led Churchill to appoint him as Minister of Health some six weeks after the debate.[98]

Out of office, Bevan soon exacerbated the split within the Labour Party between the right and the left which weakened the party in the 1950s.[99] For the next five years, he was the leader of the left wing of the Labour Party, who became known as Bevanites. They criticised the right-wing "Gaitskellites" high defence expenditure (especially for nuclear weapons), called for better relations with the Soviet Union, and opposed the party leader, Clement Attlee, on most issues. According to Richard Crossman, Bevan hated "the in-fighting which you have to do in politics.... He wasn't cut out to be a leader, he was cut out to be a prophet".[100] In April 1954, Bevan resigned from the Parliamentary Labour Party, having been rebuked by Attlee after accusing the Labour leader of surrendering to American pressure over a proposed multi-national defence organisation in Asia and the Pacific.[101] He later said that he had resigned his position to "call attention to the fact that their movement was in grave crisis", and stated his belief that he would have been party chairman by the following year if he had remained.[102] In July of the same year, Bevan announced his intention to stand for election as the Treasurer of the Labour Party against Hugh Gaitskell. His nomination received a severe blow on the same day it was announced, when two unions that traditionally sided with the left, the National Union of Mineworkers and the Amalgamated Engineering Union, pledged their support for his opponent.[103] Although unsuccessful in his bid, he did celebrate 25 years as the MP for Ebbw Vale.[102]

In March 1955, when Britain was preparing for Operation Grapple, the testing of its first hydrogen bomb, Bevan led a revolt of 57 Labour MPs and abstained on a key vote.[104] The Parliamentary Labour Party voted 141 to 113 to withdraw the whip from him, but it was restored within a month, due to his popularity.[105] After the 1955 general election, Attlee retired as Labour leader. Bevan contested the leadership against both Morrison and Labour right-winger Gaitskell, but it was Gaitskell who emerged victorious with more than half of the ballots.[106] Bevan's remark that "I know the right kind of political Leader for the Labour Party is a kind of desiccated calculating machine" was assumed to refer to Gaitskell, although Bevan denied it (commenting upon Gaitskell's record as Chancellor of the Exchequer as having "proved" this). Bevan also failed in a bid to become deputy leader, losing out to Jim Griffiths.[107] He instead stood again for the role of party treasurer and was duly elected, beating George Brown.[108]

Despite Bevan's criticism of the new party leader, Gaitskell decided to appoint him as Shadow Colonial Secretary,[109] and then Shadow Foreign Secretary in 1956. Bevan was as critical of Nasserist Egypt's seizure of the Suez Canal on 26 July 1956 as he was of the subsequent Anglo-French military response. He compared Gamal Abdel Nasser with Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, from One Thousand and One Nights.[110] He was a vocal critic of the Conservative government's actions in the Suez Crisis, noticeably delivering high-profile speeches at a protest rally in Trafalgar Square on 4 November 1956, and criticising the government's actions and arguments in the Commons on 5 December 1956. Bevan accused the government of a "policy of bankruptcy and despair",[111] stating at the Trafalgar rally:

We are stronger than Egypt but there are other countries stronger than us. Are we prepared to accept for ourselves the logic we are applying to Egypt? If nations more powerful than ourselves accept the absence of principle, the anarchistic attitude of Eden and launch bombs on London, what answer have we got, what complaint have we got? If we are going to appeal to force, if force is to be the arbiter to which we appeal, it would at least make common sense to try to make sure beforehand that we have got it, even if you accept that abysmal logic, that decadent point of view.

We are in fact in the position today of having appealed to force in the case of a small nation, where if it is appealed to against us it will result in the destruction of Great Britain, not only as a nation, but as an island containing living men and women. Therefore I say to Anthony [Eden], I say to the British government, there is no count at all upon which they can be defended.

They have besmirched the name of Britain. They have made us ashamed of the things of which formerly we were proud. They have offended against every principle of decency and there is only one way in which they can even begin to restore their tarnished reputation and that is to get out! Get out! Get out![111]

Bevan dismayed many of his supporters when he suddenly reversed his opposition to nuclear weapons.[112] Speaking at the 1957 Labour Party conference, he decried unilateral nuclear disarmament, saying "It would send a British Foreign Secretary naked into the conference-chamber". This statement is often misconstrued: Bevan argued that unilateralism would result in Britain's loss of allies, and one interpretation of his metaphor is that nakedness would come from the lack of allies, not the lack of weapons.[113] According to the journalist Paul Routledge, Donald Bruce, a former MP and Parliamentary Private Secretary and adviser to Bevan, had told him that Bevan's shift on the disarmament issue was the result of discussions with the Soviet government, where they advised him to push for British retention of nuclear weapons so they could possibly be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the United States.[114]

In 1957, Bevan, Richard Crossman and the Labour Party's General Secretary Morgan Phillips sued The Spectator magazine for libel, after one of its writers described them as drinking heavily during an Italian Socialist Party conference. The article wrote that the three men:

...puzzled the Italians by their capacity to fill themselves like tanks with whisky and coffee... Although the Italians were never sure the British delegation were sober, they always attributed to them an immense political acumen.

The three won their case, and obtained financial damages of £2,500 each.[115] Crossman later acknowledged that they had perjured themselves to do so.[116]

Bevan was elected unopposed as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party in 1959, succeeding Griffiths.[117] His last speech in the House of Commons, in the debate of 3 November 1959 on the Queen's Speech,[118] referred to the difficulties of persuading the electorate to support a policy which would make them less well-off in the short term, but more prosperous in the long term.

Bevan had said "I would rather be kept alive in the efficient if cold altruism of a large hospital than expire in a gush of warm sympathy in a small one".[119] He checked into the Royal Free Hospital in London on 27 December 1959 to undergo surgery for an ulcer, but malignant stomach cancer was discovered instead in a major operation two days later.[120]

After a lengthy period in hospital, on 14 February 1960 Bevan returned home and announced he would not be returning to politics in the near future, so as to be able to recuperate and plan an extended holiday.[121] In May 1960 Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, while in England visited Bevan at his home in Asheridge Farm (where Bevan was a keen amateur farmer, keeping cattle and pigs).[122]

Bevan died in his sleep at 4.10pm on 6 July 1960, at the age of 62, at his home, Asheridge Farm, Chesham, Buckinghamshire. His remains were cremated at Gwent Crematorium in Croesyceiliog in a private family ceremony.[123][124] An open-air service was held in his constituency of Ebbw Vale and was presided over by Donald Soper.[125] Jennie Lee explained in a letter to Michael Foot, who would be elected to Bevan's seat in the by-election that ensued following his death, that Bevan had specifically chosen to have a non-religious funeral and not a Christian service, because he was a firm humanist.

'Nye is asleep next door. Later today he will be taken home to Wales. Tomorrow he will be cremated in keeping with his known views. [Nye] was never a hypocrite. No falsity must touch him once he is no longer available to defend his views. He was not a cold-blooded rationalist. He was no calculating machine. He was a great humanist whose religion lay in loving his fellow men and trying to serve them... He knelt reverently in respect to a friend or friend's faith, but he never pretended to be anything other than what he was, a humanist.

— Jennie Lee to Michael Foot, 7 July 1960.[126]

In his 2014 biography, Nick Thomas-Symonds described "an outpouring of national mourning" that followed Bevan's death. The Daily Herald stated that some MPs were seen to be crying in Parliament and described how there was "sorrow at every street corner" in the South Wales Valleys.[12] Harold Macmillan ended his Prime Minister's Questions session in Parliament two days after Bevan's death by paying tribute to the opposition MP, describing him as "a great personality and a great national figure". Macmillan noted that despite being a "controversial figure" during his career, Bevan's death had seen an outpouring of genuine "admiration and affection".[127] Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell also paid tribute to his former shadow cabinet member and ended his speech by labelling Bevan as "one of the great men of our day".[127]

A portrait of Bevan in the Senedd building

Bevan's most significant legacy is the National Health Service. Bevan foresaw that it would always be the subject of public debate, warning that "This service must always be changing, growing and improving; it must always appear to be inadequate." However, seven decades after it was founded, a 2013 opinion poll conducted on behalf of British Future found that the NHS was more popular than at its creation, and more popular than the monarchy, the BBC, and the British Armed Forces.[128]

Bevan was particularly noted for his public speaking, being described by Robin Butler, Baron Butler of Brockwell, as "the greatest parliamentary speaker since Charles James Fox". Winston Churchill, the target of numerous diatribes from Bevan during his career, commented that Bevan was "one of the few members that I will sit still and listen to". Bevan's reputation as a hard-line socialist typically preceded him: Sir William Douglas, who served as Bevan's deputy in the Ministry of Health, had initially stated that he would "never work with a man like that". However, by the end of his tenure, he had declared Bevan as "the best minister we have had".[45] Clement Attlee expressed his support that Bevan should have been the leader of the Labour Party during his lifetime but was held back by his demeanour, stating "he wants to be two things simultaneously, rebel and official leader, and you can't be both".[129]

A bronze statue was commissioned by South Glamorgan County Council and erected in 1987 in the city centre of Cardiff.[130] The Nye Bevan Estate in Clapton Park, Hackney, London, was named after Bevan, and was opened in October 1962 by his friend and biographer Michael Foot.[131]

In November 1997 BBC One broadcast the drama profile Food for Ravens, with Brian Cox as Bevan and Sinead Cusack as Jennie Lee.[132]

The main stone of the Aneurin Bevan Memorial Stones at the Sirhowy Valley Walk

The Aneurin Bevan Memorial Stones were erected at the beginning of the Sirhowy Valley Walk with three smaller stones (representing three towns of his constituency Ebbw Vale, Rhymney and Tredegar) surrounding a larger stone representing Bevan.[133] In 2002, Bevan was voted as the 45th greatest Briton of all time by the BBC public opinion poll, 100 Greatest Britons.[134] The following year, Bevan was voted number one in the 100 Welsh Heroes poll, a response to find the public's favourite Welsh people of all time.[135][136] Numerous institutions bear Bevan's name, including the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, and Ysbyty Aneurin Bevan, a hospital located within his old Ebbw Vale constituency.[137]

In 2015, Welsh actor Michael Sheen gave a speech in which he described Bevan as a mythical creature, stating, "He had cast-iron integrity and a raging passion".[12]

• Why Not Trust The Tories?, 1944. Published under the pseudonym 'Celticus'. The title was intended ironically.
• In Place of Fear, 1952. (ISBN 9781163810118)

Excerpts from Bevan's speeches are included in Greg Rosen's book Old Labour to New : the dreams that inspired, the battles that divided (published by Methuen in 2005 (ISBN 978-1-84275-045-2)).

Bevan's key speeches in the legislative arena are to be found in:

• Peter J. Laugharne (ed.), Aneurin Bevan – A Parliamentary Odyssey: Volume I, Speeches at Westminster 1929–1944, Manutius Press, 1996.
• Peter J. Laugharne (ed.), Aneurin Bevan – A Parliamentary Odyssey: Volume II, Speeches at Westminster 1945–1960, Manutius Press, 2000.
• Peter J. Laugharne (ed.), Aneurin Bevan – A Parliamentary Odyssey: Volumes I and II, Speeches at Westminster 1929–1960, Manutius Press, 2004.

• Bevanism
• Political history of the United Kingdom (1945–present)
• Attlee ministry
• List of Welsh medical pioneers

• Campbell, John (1987). Nye Bevan and the Mirage of British Socialism. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-297-78998-7.
• Crosland, Anthony (1956). The Future of Socialism. Cape. ISBN 9780224018883.
• Foot, Michael (1966). Aneurin Bevan: A Biography. Vol. 1. Tribune Publications. ISBN 9780689105876.
• Krug, Mark M. (1961). Aneurin Bevan: Cautious Rebel. New York: Yoseloff.
• Kynaston, David (2008) [2007]. Austerity Britain, 1945–51. Tales of a New Jerusalem. Vol. 1. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-7475-9923-4.
• — (2009). Family Britain 1951-57. Tales of a New Jerusalem. Vol. 2. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-7475-8385-1.

• Foot, Michael (1962). Aneurin Bevan: A Biography Volume One: 1897-1945. Vol. 1. Macgibbon & Kee.

• Morgan, Kenneth O. (1981). Rebirth of a Nation. Wales 1889–1980. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-821760-9.
• Thomas-Symonds, Nicklaus (2014). Nye: The Political Life of Aneurin Bevan. IB Tauris. ISBN 9781780762098.

• Thorpe, Andrew (1997). A History of the British Labour Party. London: Macmillan Education UK. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-25305-0. ISBN 978-0-333-56081-5.

• Wrigley, Chris (2002). Winston Churchill: A Biographical Companion. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-87436-990-8.

• Lee, Jennie (1980). My Life with Nye. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 978-0-224-01785-5.
• Campbell, John (1987). "Demythologising Nye Bevan". History Today. 37 (4): 13–18. ISSN 0018-2753.

• Fairlie, Henry. "Oratory in Political Life," History Today (Jan 1960) 10#1 pp 3–13. covers Bevan
• Jenkins, Mark (1979). Bevanism – Labour's High Tide. The Cold War and the Democratic Mass Movement. ISBN 9780851243221.
• Morgan, Kenneth O. (1984). Labour People: leaders and lieutenants, Hardie to Kinnock. Oxford University Press. pp. 204–19. ISBN 9780571259618.
• Morgan, Kenneth O. (2002). Labour Forces: From Ernie Bevin to Gordon Brown. pp. 81–103. ISBN 9780857714152.

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• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Aneurin Bevan
• Works by Aneurin Bevan at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) (large file)
• Aneurin Bevan and the foundation of the NHS: Socialist Health Association website
• "Great speeches: Aneurin Bevan", The Guardian, featuring full audio of Bevan's speech at the 4 November 1956 Trafalgar Square rally against British action in Suez.
• Newspaper clippings about Aneurin Bevan in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW (unindexed)
• Aneurin Bevan at British Pathe
• Images of Bevan at the National Portrait Gallery