Kingsley Wood
Encyclopedia
Sir Howard Kingsley Wood (19 August 1881 – 21 September 1943) was an English Conservative
politician. The son of a Wesleyan Methodist
minister, he qualified as a solicitor, and successfully specialised in industrial insurance. He became a member of the London County Council
and then a Member of Parliament
.
Wood served as junior minister to Neville Chamberlain
at the Ministry of Health
, establishing a close personal and political alliance. His first cabinet post was Postmaster General
, in which he transformed the British Post Office
from a bureaucracy to a business. As Secretary of State for Air
in the months before the Second World War he oversaw a huge increase in the production of warplanes to bring Britain up to parity with Germany. When Winston Churchill
became Prime Minister in 1940, Wood was made Chancellor of the Exchequer
, in which post he adopted policies propounded by John Maynard Keynes
, changing the role of HM Treasury
from custodian of government income and expenditure to steering the entire British economy.
One of Wood's last innovations was the creation of Pay As You Earn, under which income tax is deducted from employees' current pay, rather than being collected retrospectively. This system remains in force in Britain. Wood died suddenly on the day on which the new system was to be announced to Parliament.
, eldest of three children of the Rev Arthur Wood, a Wesleyan Methodist
minister, and his wife, Harriett Siddons née Howard. His father was appointed to be minister of Wesley's Chapel
in London, where Wood grew up, attending a local Wesleyan school. He was articled
to a solicitor
, qualifying in 1903 with honours in his law examinations.
In 1905 Wood married Agnes Lilian Fawcett (d. 1955); there were no children of the marriage, but the couple adopted a daughter. Wood established his own law firm in the City of London
, specialising in industrial insurance law. He represented the industrial insurance companies in their negotiations with the Liberal
government before the introduction of Lloyd George
's National Insurance Bill in 1911, gaining valuable concessions for his clients.
Wood was first elected to office as a member of the London County Council
(LCC) at a bye-election on 22 November 1911, representing the Borough of Woolwich for the Municipal Reform party. His importance in the field of insurance grew over the next few years; his biographer Roy Jenkins
has called him "the legal panjandrum of industrial insurance". He chaired the London Old Age Pension Authority in 1915 and the London Insurance Committee from 1917 to 1918, was a member of the National Insurance Advisory Committee from 1911 to 1919, chairman of the Faculty of Insurance from 1916 to 1919 and president of the faculty in 1920, 1922 and 1923. At the LCC he was a member of the council committees on insurance, pensions and housing. He was knighted in 1918 at the unusually early age of 36. It was not then, as it later became, the practice to state in Honours Lists the reason for the conferring of an honour, but Jenkins writes that Wood's knighthood was essentially for his work in the insurance field.
as a Conservative
in the "khaki election
" of 1918. His constituency, Woolwich West
, was marginal
, but Wood represented it for the rest of his life. Before being elected, he had attracted notice by advocating the establishment of a Ministry of Health
; after the election he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary (an unpaid ministerial assistant, a traditional first rung on the political ladder) to the first Minister of Health, Christopher Addison
.
After the collapse of the coalition government in 1922, Wood was offered no post in the Conservative government formed by Bonar Law
. As a backbencher, Wood successfully introduced the Summer Time Bill of 1924. This measure, passed in the teeth of opposition from the agricultural lobby, provided for a permanent annual summer time period of six months from the first Sunday in April to the first Sunday in October.
When Baldwin
succeeded Law in 1924, Wood was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health
, as junior minister to Neville Chamberlain
. The two served at the Ministry of Health from 11 November 1924 to 4 June 1929, becoming friends and firm political allies. They worked closely together on local government reform, including a radical updating of local taxation, the "rates
", based on property values. Wood's political standing was marked by his appointment as a civil commissioner during the general strike
of 1926, and, unusually for a junior minister, as a privy councillor
in 1928. In 1930 he was elected as the first chairman of the executive committee of the National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations
.
When the National Government
was formed by Ramsay MacDonald
in 1931, Wood was made Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education. After the general election of November 1931 he was promoted to the office of Postmaster General
. The position did not entail automatic membership of the cabinet, but Wood was made a cabinet member in 1933.
(GPO), Wood inherited an old-fashioned organisation, not equipped to meet the needs of the 1930s. In particular its management of the national telephone system, a GPO monopoly, was widely criticised. Wood considered reconstituting the whole of the GPO, changing it from a government department to what would later be called a quango
, and he set up an independent committee to advise him on this. The committee recommended that the GPO should remain a department of state but adopt a more commercial approach.
Under Wood the GPO introduced reply paid
arrangements for businesses, and set up a national teleprinter
service. For the telephone service, still mostly dependent on manual operators, the GPO introduced a programme of building new automated exchanges. For the postal service, the GPO built up a large fleet of motor vehicles to speed delivery, with 3,000 vans and 1,200 motor-cycles. Wood was a strong believer in publicity; he set up an advertising campaign for the telephone system which dramatically increased the number of subscribers, and he established the GPO Film Unit
which gained a high aesthetic reputation as well as raising the GPO's profile. Most importantly, Wood transformed the senior management of the GPO and negotiated a practical financial deal with HM Treasury
. The civil service post of Secretary to the Post Office was replaced by a director general with an expert board of management. The old financial rules, by which all the GPO's surplus revenue was surrendered to the Treasury had long prevented reinvestment in the business; Wood negotiated a new arrangement under which the GPO would pay an agreed annual sum to the Treasury and keep the remainder of its revenue for investment.
When Macdonald was succeeded as head of the coalition government by Baldwin in 1935, Wood was appointed Minister of Health
. Despite its title, the Ministry was at that time at least as concerned with housing as with health. Under Wood, his biographer G. C. Peden writes, "the slum clearance programme was pursued with energy, and overcrowding was greatly reduced. There was also a marked improvement in maternal mortality, mainly due to the discovery of antibiotics able to counteract septicaemia, but also because a full-time, salaried midwifery service was created under the Midwives Act of 1936." Jenkins comments that the housing boom of the 1930s was one of the two main contributories to such economic recovery as there was after the great depression
.
When Anthony Eden
resigned from Chamberlain's government in March 1938 Wood moved to be Secretary of State for Air
in the ensuing reshuffle. The UK was then producing 80 new warplanes a month. Within two years under Wood the figure had risen to 546 a month. By the outbreak of the Second World War, Britain was producing as many new warplanes as Germany. By early 1940, Wood was worn out by his efforts, and Chamberlain moved him to the non-departmental office of Lord Privy Seal, switching the incumbent, Sir Samuel Hoare, to the Air Ministry in Wood's place. Wood's job was to chair both the Home Policy Committee of the cabinet, which considered "all social service and other domestic questions and reviews proposals for legislation" and the Food Policy Committee, overseeing "the problems of food policy and home agriculture". He held this position for only a few weeks; the downfall of Chamberlain affected Wood in an unexpected way.
In May 1940, as a trusted friend of Chamberlain, Wood told him "affectionately but firmly" that after the debacle of the British defeat in Norway
and the ensuing Commons debate, Chamberlain's position as Prime Minister was impossible and he must resign. He also advised Winston Churchill
to ignore pressure from those who wanted Lord Halifax
, not Churchill, as Chamberlain's successor. Both men acted on his advice. Churchill became Prime Minister on 10 May 1940; on 12 May Wood was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer
.
, whom Churchill detested. Another may have been Wood's record of working well with politicians from other parties. In peacetime, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is often the most important member of the cabinet after the Prime Minister, but the exigencies of the war reduced the Chancellor's precedence. The Treasury temporarily ceased to be the core department of government. In Peden's words, "Non-military aspects of policy, including economic policy, were co-ordinated by a cabinet committee … The Treasury's main jobs were to finance the war with as little inflation as possible, to conduct external financial policy so as to secure overseas supplies on the best possible terms, and to take part in planning for the post-war period."
Wood was Chancellor, as Jenkins notes, "for the forty key months of the Second World War". He presented four budgets to Parliament. His first, in July 1940, passed with little notice, and brought into effect some minor changes planned by his predecessor. Of more long-lasting impact was his creation in the same month of a council of economic advisers, the most notable of whom, John Maynard Keynes
, was quickly recruited as a full-time adviser at the Treasury. Jenkins detects Keynes's influence in Wood's second budget, in April 1941. It brought in a top income tax rate of 19s 6d (97½ pence in decimal currency) and added two million to the number of income tax payers; for the first time in Britain's history the majority of the population was liable to income tax. Keynes convinced Wood that he should abandon the orthodox Treasury doctrine that Chancellors' budgets were purely to regulate governmental revenue and expenditure; Wood, despite some misgivings on Churchill's part, adopted Keynes's conception of using national income accounting to control the economy.
With the hugely increased public expenditure necessitated by the war – it increased sixfold between 1938 and 1943 – inflation was always a danger. Wood sought to head off inflationary wage claims by subsidising essential rationed goods, while imposing heavy taxes on goods classed as non-essential. The last change pioneered by Wood as Chancellor was the imposition of Pay As You Earn (PAYE) by which income tax is deducted from current pay rather than paid retrospectively on past years' earnings. He did not live to see it come into effect; he died suddenly at his London home on the morning of the day on which he was due to announce PAYE in the House of Commons. He was 62.
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
politician. The son of a Wesleyan Methodist
Wesleyan Methodist Church (Great Britain)
The Wesleyan Methodist Church was the name used by the major Methodist movement in Great Britain following its split from the Church of England after the death of John Wesley and the appearance of parallel Methodist movements...
minister, he qualified as a solicitor, and successfully specialised in industrial insurance. He became a member of the London County Council
London County Council
London County Council was the principal local government body for the County of London, throughout its 1889–1965 existence, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today known as Inner London and was replaced by the Greater London Council...
and then a Member of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
.
Wood served as junior minister to Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
at the Ministry of Health
Secretary of State for Health
Secretary of State for Health is a UK cabinet position responsible for the Department of Health.The first Boards of Health were created by Orders in Council dated 21 June, 14 November, and 21 November 1831. In 1848 a General Board of Health was created with the First Commissioner of Woods and...
, establishing a close personal and political alliance. His first cabinet post was Postmaster General
United Kingdom Postmaster General
The Postmaster General of the United Kingdom is a defunct Cabinet-level ministerial position in HM Government. Aside from maintaining the postal system, the Telegraph Act of 1868 established the Postmaster General's right to exclusively maintain electric telegraphs...
, in which he transformed the British Post Office
General Post Office
General Post Office is the name of the British postal system from 1660 until 1969.General Post Office may also refer to:* General Post Office, Perth* General Post Office, Sydney* General Post Office, Melbourne* General Post Office, Brisbane...
from a bureaucracy to a business. As Secretary of State for Air
Secretary of State for Air
The Secretary of State for Air was a cabinet level British position. The person holding this position was in charge of the Air Ministry. It was created on 10 January 1919 to manage the Royal Air Force...
in the months before the Second World War he oversaw a huge increase in the production of warplanes to bring Britain up to parity with Germany. When Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
became Prime Minister in 1940, Wood was made Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
, in which post he adopted policies propounded by John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes, Baron Keynes of Tilton, CB FBA , was a British economist whose ideas have profoundly affected the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics, as well as the economic policies of governments...
, changing the role of HM Treasury
HM Treasury
HM Treasury, in full Her Majesty's Treasury, informally The Treasury, is the United Kingdom government department responsible for developing and executing the British government's public finance policy and economic policy...
from custodian of government income and expenditure to steering the entire British economy.
One of Wood's last innovations was the creation of Pay As You Earn, under which income tax is deducted from employees' current pay, rather than being collected retrospectively. This system remains in force in Britain. Wood died suddenly on the day on which the new system was to be announced to Parliament.
Early years
Wood was born in HullKingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull , usually referred to as Hull, is a city and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It stands on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber estuary, 25 miles inland from the North Sea. Hull has a resident population of...
, eldest of three children of the Rev Arthur Wood, a Wesleyan Methodist
Wesleyan Methodist Church (Great Britain)
The Wesleyan Methodist Church was the name used by the major Methodist movement in Great Britain following its split from the Church of England after the death of John Wesley and the appearance of parallel Methodist movements...
minister, and his wife, Harriett Siddons née Howard. His father was appointed to be minister of Wesley's Chapel
Wesley's Chapel
Wesley's Chapel is a chapel in London which was built by the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. The site also is now both a place of worship and a visitor attraction, incorporating the Museum of Methodism and John Wesley's House...
in London, where Wood grew up, attending a local Wesleyan school. He was articled
Articled clerk
An articled clerk, also known as an articling student, is an apprentice in a professional firm in Commonwealth countries. Generally the term arises in the accountancy profession and in the legal profession. The articled clerk signs a contract, known as "articles of clerkship", committing to a...
to a solicitor
Solicitor
Solicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts. In the United Kingdom, a few Australian states and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers , and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...
, qualifying in 1903 with honours in his law examinations.
In 1905 Wood married Agnes Lilian Fawcett (d. 1955); there were no children of the marriage, but the couple adopted a daughter. Wood established his own law firm in the City of London
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
, specialising in industrial insurance law. He represented the industrial insurance companies in their negotiations with the Liberal
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
government before the introduction of Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
's National Insurance Bill in 1911, gaining valuable concessions for his clients.
Wood was first elected to office as a member of the London County Council
London County Council
London County Council was the principal local government body for the County of London, throughout its 1889–1965 existence, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today known as Inner London and was replaced by the Greater London Council...
(LCC) at a bye-election on 22 November 1911, representing the Borough of Woolwich for the Municipal Reform party. His importance in the field of insurance grew over the next few years; his biographer Roy Jenkins
Roy Jenkins
Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead OM, PC was a British politician.The son of a Welsh coal miner who later became a union official and Labour MP, Roy Jenkins served with distinction in World War II. Elected to Parliament as a Labour member in 1948, he served in several major posts in...
has called him "the legal panjandrum of industrial insurance". He chaired the London Old Age Pension Authority in 1915 and the London Insurance Committee from 1917 to 1918, was a member of the National Insurance Advisory Committee from 1911 to 1919, chairman of the Faculty of Insurance from 1916 to 1919 and president of the faculty in 1920, 1922 and 1923. At the LCC he was a member of the council committees on insurance, pensions and housing. He was knighted in 1918 at the unusually early age of 36. It was not then, as it later became, the practice to state in Honours Lists the reason for the conferring of an honour, but Jenkins writes that Wood's knighthood was essentially for his work in the insurance field.
Member of Parliament
Wood was elected to ParliamentParliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
as a Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
in the "khaki election
United Kingdom general election, 1918
The United Kingdom general election of 1918 was the first to be held after the Representation of the People Act 1918, which meant it was the first United Kingdom general election in which nearly all adult men and some women could vote. Polling was held on 14 December 1918, although the count did...
" of 1918. His constituency, Woolwich West
Woolwich West (UK Parliament constituency)
Woolwich West was a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1918 until 1983. It was based around Eltham, now in the London Borough of Greenwich in south-east London....
, was marginal
Marginal seat
A marginal seat, or swing seat, is a constituency held with a particularly small majority in a legislative election, generally conducted under a single-winner voting system. In Canada they may be known as target ridings. The opposite is a safe seat....
, but Wood represented it for the rest of his life. Before being elected, he had attracted notice by advocating the establishment of a Ministry of Health
Department of Health (United Kingdom)
The Department of Health is a department of the United Kingdom government with responsibility for government policy for health and social care matters and for the National Health Service in England along with a few elements of the same matters which are not otherwise devolved to the Scottish,...
; after the election he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary (an unpaid ministerial assistant, a traditional first rung on the political ladder) to the first Minister of Health, Christopher Addison
Christopher Addison, 1st Viscount Addison
Sir Christopher Addison, 1st Viscount Addison KG, PC was a British medical doctor and politician. By turns a liberal and a socialist, he served as Minister of Munitions during the first World War, and was later Minister of Health under David Lloyd George and Leader of the House of Lords under...
.
After the collapse of the coalition government in 1922, Wood was offered no post in the Conservative government formed by Bonar Law
Andrew Bonar Law
Andrew Bonar Law was a British Conservative Party statesman and Prime Minister. Born in the colony of New Brunswick, he is the only British Prime Minister to have been born outside the British Isles...
. As a backbencher, Wood successfully introduced the Summer Time Bill of 1924. This measure, passed in the teeth of opposition from the agricultural lobby, provided for a permanent annual summer time period of six months from the first Sunday in April to the first Sunday in October.
When Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC was a British Conservative politician, who dominated the government in his country between the two world wars...
succeeded Law in 1924, Wood was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health
Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health was a junior ministerial office in the United Kingdom Government.The Ministry of Health was created in 1919 as a reconstruction of the Local Government Board...
, as junior minister to Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
. The two served at the Ministry of Health from 11 November 1924 to 4 June 1929, becoming friends and firm political allies. They worked closely together on local government reform, including a radical updating of local taxation, the "rates
Rates (tax)
Rates are a type of property tax system in the United Kingdom, and in places with systems deriving from the British one, the proceeds of which are used to fund local government...
", based on property values. Wood's political standing was marked by his appointment as a civil commissioner during the general strike
1926 United Kingdom general strike
The 1926 general strike in the United Kingdom was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 May 1926 to 13 May 1926. It was called by the general council of the Trades Union Congress in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British government to act to prevent wage reduction and worsening...
of 1926, and, unusually for a junior minister, as a privy councillor
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...
in 1928. In 1930 he was elected as the first chairman of the executive committee of the National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations
National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations
The National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations was a federation of the voluntary wing of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom....
.
When the National Government
First National Ministry
See also First National Government 1931The First National Ministry was a coalition government formed in the United Kingdom, following the collapse of the Second MacDonald Labour Ministry in 1931.-Formation:...
was formed by Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
in 1931, Wood was made Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education. After the general election of November 1931 he was promoted to the office of Postmaster General
United Kingdom Postmaster General
The Postmaster General of the United Kingdom is a defunct Cabinet-level ministerial position in HM Government. Aside from maintaining the postal system, the Telegraph Act of 1868 established the Postmaster General's right to exclusively maintain electric telegraphs...
. The position did not entail automatic membership of the cabinet, but Wood was made a cabinet member in 1933.
Cabinet office
As minister in charge of the General Post OfficeGeneral Post Office
General Post Office is the name of the British postal system from 1660 until 1969.General Post Office may also refer to:* General Post Office, Perth* General Post Office, Sydney* General Post Office, Melbourne* General Post Office, Brisbane...
(GPO), Wood inherited an old-fashioned organisation, not equipped to meet the needs of the 1930s. In particular its management of the national telephone system, a GPO monopoly, was widely criticised. Wood considered reconstituting the whole of the GPO, changing it from a government department to what would later be called a quango
Quango
Quango or qango is an acronym used notably in the United Kingdom, Ireland and elsewhere to label an organisation to which government has devolved power...
, and he set up an independent committee to advise him on this. The committee recommended that the GPO should remain a department of state but adopt a more commercial approach.
Under Wood the GPO introduced reply paid
Freepost
Freepost is a postal service provided by various postal administrations, whereby a person sends mail without affixing postage, and the recipient pays the postage when collecting the mail...
arrangements for businesses, and set up a national teleprinter
Teleprinter
A teleprinter is a electromechanical typewriter that can be used to communicate typed messages from point to point and point to multipoint over a variety of communication channels that range from a simple electrical connection, such as a pair of wires, to the use of radio and microwave as the...
service. For the telephone service, still mostly dependent on manual operators, the GPO introduced a programme of building new automated exchanges. For the postal service, the GPO built up a large fleet of motor vehicles to speed delivery, with 3,000 vans and 1,200 motor-cycles. Wood was a strong believer in publicity; he set up an advertising campaign for the telephone system which dramatically increased the number of subscribers, and he established the GPO Film Unit
GPO Film Unit
The GPO Film Unit was a subdivision of the UK General Post Office. The unit was established in 1933, taking on responsibilities of the Empire Marketing Board Film Unit...
which gained a high aesthetic reputation as well as raising the GPO's profile. Most importantly, Wood transformed the senior management of the GPO and negotiated a practical financial deal with HM Treasury
HM Treasury
HM Treasury, in full Her Majesty's Treasury, informally The Treasury, is the United Kingdom government department responsible for developing and executing the British government's public finance policy and economic policy...
. The civil service post of Secretary to the Post Office was replaced by a director general with an expert board of management. The old financial rules, by which all the GPO's surplus revenue was surrendered to the Treasury had long prevented reinvestment in the business; Wood negotiated a new arrangement under which the GPO would pay an agreed annual sum to the Treasury and keep the remainder of its revenue for investment.
When Macdonald was succeeded as head of the coalition government by Baldwin in 1935, Wood was appointed Minister of Health
Secretary of State for Health
Secretary of State for Health is a UK cabinet position responsible for the Department of Health.The first Boards of Health were created by Orders in Council dated 21 June, 14 November, and 21 November 1831. In 1848 a General Board of Health was created with the First Commissioner of Woods and...
. Despite its title, the Ministry was at that time at least as concerned with housing as with health. Under Wood, his biographer G. C. Peden writes, "the slum clearance programme was pursued with energy, and overcrowding was greatly reduced. There was also a marked improvement in maternal mortality, mainly due to the discovery of antibiotics able to counteract septicaemia, but also because a full-time, salaried midwifery service was created under the Midwives Act of 1936." Jenkins comments that the housing boom of the 1930s was one of the two main contributories to such economic recovery as there was after the great depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
.
When Anthony Eden
Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC was a British Conservative politician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957...
resigned from Chamberlain's government in March 1938 Wood moved to be Secretary of State for Air
Secretary of State for Air
The Secretary of State for Air was a cabinet level British position. The person holding this position was in charge of the Air Ministry. It was created on 10 January 1919 to manage the Royal Air Force...
in the ensuing reshuffle. The UK was then producing 80 new warplanes a month. Within two years under Wood the figure had risen to 546 a month. By the outbreak of the Second World War, Britain was producing as many new warplanes as Germany. By early 1940, Wood was worn out by his efforts, and Chamberlain moved him to the non-departmental office of Lord Privy Seal, switching the incumbent, Sir Samuel Hoare, to the Air Ministry in Wood's place. Wood's job was to chair both the Home Policy Committee of the cabinet, which considered "all social service and other domestic questions and reviews proposals for legislation" and the Food Policy Committee, overseeing "the problems of food policy and home agriculture". He held this position for only a few weeks; the downfall of Chamberlain affected Wood in an unexpected way.
In May 1940, as a trusted friend of Chamberlain, Wood told him "affectionately but firmly" that after the debacle of the British defeat in Norway
Norwegian Campaign
The Norwegian Campaign was a military campaign that was fought in Norway during the Second World War between the Allies and Germany, after the latter's invasion of the country. In April 1940, the United Kingdom and France came to Norway's aid with an expeditionary force...
and the ensuing Commons debate, Chamberlain's position as Prime Minister was impossible and he must resign. He also advised Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
to ignore pressure from those who wanted Lord Halifax
E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax
Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, , known as The Lord Irwin from 1925 until 1934 and as The Viscount Halifax from 1934 until 1944, was one of the most senior British Conservative politicians of the 1930s, during which he held several senior ministerial posts, most notably as...
, not Churchill, as Chamberlain's successor. Both men acted on his advice. Churchill became Prime Minister on 10 May 1940; on 12 May Wood was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
.
HM Treasury
One of the reasons for Wood's appointment to the Treasury seems to have been Churchill's urgent desire to be rid of the incumbent Chancellor, Sir John SimonJohn Simon, 1st Viscount Simon
John Allsebrook Simon, 1st Viscount Simon GCSI GCVO OBE PC was a British politician who held senior Cabinet posts from the beginning of the First World War to the end of the Second. He is one of only three people to have served as Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer,...
, whom Churchill detested. Another may have been Wood's record of working well with politicians from other parties. In peacetime, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is often the most important member of the cabinet after the Prime Minister, but the exigencies of the war reduced the Chancellor's precedence. The Treasury temporarily ceased to be the core department of government. In Peden's words, "Non-military aspects of policy, including economic policy, were co-ordinated by a cabinet committee … The Treasury's main jobs were to finance the war with as little inflation as possible, to conduct external financial policy so as to secure overseas supplies on the best possible terms, and to take part in planning for the post-war period."
Wood was Chancellor, as Jenkins notes, "for the forty key months of the Second World War". He presented four budgets to Parliament. His first, in July 1940, passed with little notice, and brought into effect some minor changes planned by his predecessor. Of more long-lasting impact was his creation in the same month of a council of economic advisers, the most notable of whom, John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes, Baron Keynes of Tilton, CB FBA , was a British economist whose ideas have profoundly affected the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics, as well as the economic policies of governments...
, was quickly recruited as a full-time adviser at the Treasury. Jenkins detects Keynes's influence in Wood's second budget, in April 1941. It brought in a top income tax rate of 19s 6d (97½ pence in decimal currency) and added two million to the number of income tax payers; for the first time in Britain's history the majority of the population was liable to income tax. Keynes convinced Wood that he should abandon the orthodox Treasury doctrine that Chancellors' budgets were purely to regulate governmental revenue and expenditure; Wood, despite some misgivings on Churchill's part, adopted Keynes's conception of using national income accounting to control the economy.
With the hugely increased public expenditure necessitated by the war – it increased sixfold between 1938 and 1943 – inflation was always a danger. Wood sought to head off inflationary wage claims by subsidising essential rationed goods, while imposing heavy taxes on goods classed as non-essential. The last change pioneered by Wood as Chancellor was the imposition of Pay As You Earn (PAYE) by which income tax is deducted from current pay rather than paid retrospectively on past years' earnings. He did not live to see it come into effect; he died suddenly at his London home on the morning of the day on which he was due to announce PAYE in the House of Commons. He was 62.