Rarely Talked About But Entirely Awesome Historical Figures thread — Page 2

Bingowings said:

My next contribution is William Cavendish Scott Bentinck, 5th Duke Of Portland who moved all the furniture out of estate Welbeck Abbey and moved into a handful of rooms, all painted pink and all fitted with a toilet basin.

He then built an large underground dwelling for himself connected by 15 miles of tunnels including a billiard room, a 250 ft long library and an observatory capped with a glass dome.

He went out of his way to avoid anyone but his valet, having two sets of letterboxes fitted (one for mail in and one for mail out), his tenants and workmen on his estate were instructed to ignore him on the few occasions he did venture out in daylight (wearing two overcoats and an unusually tall hat carrying a very large umbrella).

He was more likely to step out at night preceded by a servant lady carrying a lantern 40 yards ahead of him.

He liked horses much more than people, building an large riding school with 100 horses (none of which he ever rode).

Despite his eccentric behaviour he was very popular with his staff who were very well treated he even built a roller skating rink for their use.

Rumours of him having a secret identity (which he killed off) were sadly quashed when his suspected alter ego’s body was exhumed and proved to not be him at all, though strangely his estate tried to prevent the body being examined further adding to the mystery.

Like a not-so-modern Michael Jackson.

Aneurin Bevan (1897 - 1960)

Aneurin Bevan was one of the most important ministers of the post-war UK government and the chief architect of the National Health Service.

Aneurin Bevan was born on 15 November 1897 in Tredegar in Wales. His father was a miner and the poor working class family in which Bevan grew up gave him first-hand experience of the problems of poverty and disease.

Bevan left school at 13 and began working in a local colliery. He became a trade union activist and won a scholarship to study in London. It was during this period that he became convinced by the ideas of socialism. During the 1926 General Strike, Bevan emerged as one of the leaders of the South Wales miners. In 1929, Bevan was elected as the Labour member of parliament for Ebbw Vale. In 1934 he married another Labour MP, Jennie Lee.

During World War Two, Bevan was one of the leaders of the left in the House of Commons. After the landslide Labour victory in the 1945 general election, Bevan was appointed Minister of Health, and is responsible for the creation of the National Health Service (aka the NHS). On 5 July 1948, the government took over responsibility for all medical services and there was free diagnosis and treatment for all.

“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.

In 1959, Bevan was elected deputy leader of the Labour Party, although he was already suffering from terminal cancer. He died on 6th July 1960.

The NHS saw it’s 70th Anniversary as of 5th July 2018.
 

Wikipedia page for Bevan - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneurin_Bevan

Wikipedia page for the NHS - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Health_Service

A little info on the history of the NHS - https://www.nhs70.nhs.uk/about/nhs-history/
 

Clement Attlee (1883-1967)

Attlee presided over the 1945 - 1951 Labour government. This was the most significant reforming administration of 20th century Britain. It introduced the National Health Service, nationalised one fifth of the British economy, and granted independence to India.

Attlee was born on 2 January 1883. He had a conventional middle-class upbringing, and after going to Oxford University began a career as a barrister. However, he abandoned this to become a social worker in the East End of London, and later joined the Labour Party. He served in the army in World War One.

Attlee rose through the rank and file of the Labour Party, becoming party leader in 1935. His quiet, unassuming personality led many to underestimate him. Plots to replace him were a regular occurrence throughout the next two decades, but Attlee had the self-assurance not to be perturbed by the machinations of his rivals or opponents.

During World War Two, Attlee was a highly successful deputy prime minister in Churchill’s coalition government. Then in 1945, when Labour swept to power in a landslide election victory, his combination of social conscience and staunch patriotism encapsulated Labour’s experiment in democratic socialism. This led to the creation of the National Health Service and the nationalisation of coal mining and the steel industry. Attlee saw his role of premier as that of an umpire, reconciling the opinions of a cabinet composed of powerful personalities. He played a critical role in supporting Bevin’s Cold War diplomacy, and in accelerating independence for India, a cause which he had supported for many years.

The most enduring legacy of the Attlee years is the welfare state. The Labour government implemented many of the ideas expounded in the Beveridge report, a 1942 official study recommending a welfare state to insure people from ‘the cradle to the grave’. It became a national phenomenon, a blueprint for the creation of the ‘New Jerusalem’: a prosperous yet egalitarian society.

Attlee’s welfare state reflected this ambition. All taxpayers contributed to social insurance, and everyone in the country was covered by it. Levels of benefits were standardised. The retirement pension was open to all and could now be claimed at the age of sixty-five rather than seventy. Under a scheme of family allowances, parents would receive a weekly payment upon the birth of their second child (and this would increase with any subsequent children).

Another significant measure was the creation of the National Health Service in July 1948. In replacing the ramshackle and localised pre-war system of healthcare, and in committing the state to treat people free of charge no matter their condition, the NHS quickly became enshrined as a cornerstone of national life.

Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour government also built more than a million homes - a generation was introduced to the joys of indoor toilets, front and/or rear gardens, and where possible a tree could be seen from every window - available to many low-income families for the first time ever. Also, under the National Assistance Act of 1948, local authorities now had a duty “to provide emergency temporary accommodation for families which become homeless through no fault of their own.”

The government pursued radical policies elsewhere. Efforts were made to improve education for the mass of the people through the 1944 Education Act, and – in an attempt to avoid the high unemployment of the thirties – key sectors of the economy were nationalised. The most important were heavy industries like coal and steel, and infrastructure such as railways. The nationalisation programme stood alongside the welfare state as the major legacy of the Attlee Years, enduring for more than three decades.

He died on 8 October 1967.

^ mainly from the BBC.
 

Wikipedia page for Clement Attlee - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Attlee#Housing

The New Yorker’s take (opinion article) on Clement Attlee - link

No.10 Gov Site page - through the Web Archive site

For anyone who studies computer science, Countess Ada is a serious kickass Goddess.

Puggo - Jar Jar’s Yoda said:

For anyone who studies computer science, Countess Ada is a serious kickass Goddess.

Indeed, quite a family, and quite a contribution in her own right there.

‘The white man in that photo’…

http://griotmag.com/en/white-man-in-that-photo/

RIP Peter Norman.
 

‘Mad Jack Churchill’

John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill, was a British Army officer who fought throughout the Second World War armed with a longbow, bagpipes, and a basket-hilted Scottish broadsword.

Valentine McGillycuddy

Dr. McGillycuddy was a controversial pioneer of the effort to build a sustainable relationship between the United States and the Native American Indian people. He traveled to Washington to protest inhumane treatment of the Indians at Camp Robinson, the Red Cloud Agency, and blow the whistle on Indian agents and military that were exploiting Indians on western reservations. His sincerity and constructive ideas for dealing with the native people so impressed authorities he was offered the Indian Agent post at Pine Ridge, the nation’s largest reservation, a challenging assignment for a 30-year-old.

When Grover Cleveland’s Democratic administration took over the White House and ordered the Pine Ridge agent to replace his efficient Republican clerk with a Democratic appointee, McGillycuddy refused to comply and was dismissed, despite protests from both races that attested to his “effective, intelligent and just administration.”

The Doctor was fed up with “government buncombe and red tape,” He had fallen victim of Washington politics, and was escorted off of the reservation with his wife and their pair of pet buffalo.

When the Ghost Dance began appearing on Pine Ridge, the man who had replaced McGillycuddy as Pine Ridge Agent called in the U.S. Army. To this, McGillycuddy responded:

“If the Seventh-day Adventists got up on the roofs of their houses in their ascension robes to welcome the Second Coming of Christ, the whole U.S. Army is not rushed into motion.”

‘Socrates: Portrait of an icon’…

https://www.football365.com/news/portrait-of-an-icon-socrates

Easily recognizable for his beard and headband, Sócrates became the “symbol of cool for a whole generation of football supporters”. He was considered to be one of the greatest midfielders ever to play the game - whilst being a self-proclaimed ‘anti-athlete’ - often smoking 30 a day and liking a drink. In 1983, he was named South American Footballer of the Year. In 2004, he was named by Pelé in the FIFA 100 list of the world’s greatest living players.

Socrates played for Brazil for seven years, scoring 22 goals and representing the nation in two World Cups. He captained the team in the 1982 FIFA World Cup; playing in midfield alongside Zico, Falcão and Éder, considered one of the greatest Brazilian national teams ever. He also appeared in the 1979 and 1983 Copa América. At club level, Sócrates played for Botafogo-SP before joining Corinthians in 1978. He moved to Italy to play for Fiorentina, returning to Brazil in 1985 to end his career.
 

Refusing to play professional football until he completed his medical studies at the age of 25, the qualified doctor emerged as the perfect remedy to cure Corinthians lengthy title drought. During his highly influential six-year spell with Timão, the man nicknamed ‘Magrão’ (Big Skinny) became nothing short of a cult hero. His elegance and composure on the ball, leadership and outstanding goalscoring prowess – scoring at total of 172 goals in 297 matches – proved significant as he guided the club to Campeonato Paulista wins on three separate occasions, 1979, 1982 and 1983. And whilst he enjoyed further success in 1983, being crowned the South American Footballer of the Year, his concern for the wider Brazilian community during the country’s military dictatorship was apparent. Sócrates saw that football could be used as a medium for social activism.

Sócrates, together with teammate Wladimir, came to spearhead their own revolutionary movement in the mid-1980s in Brazil, known as the Corinthians Democracy. Protests by the players against the club’s management of them was seen as a rejection of the current regime and a microcosm of the wider injustices experienced by the Brazilian people under the military dictatorship. In November 1982, Corinthians players had the slogan “Vote on the 15th” printed on back of their black and white shirts – a daring public act of defiance urging the public to vote in the upcoming elections and one of the first moves towards ending the dictatorship. Indeed, his revolutionary manner off the pitch was equally visible on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyDn6dKaxgs

wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sócrates