Hugh Dalton
Encyclopedia
Edward Hugh John Neale Dalton, Baron Dalton PC (16 August 1887 – 13 February 1962) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 politician who served as 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...

 from 1945 to 1947, when he was implicated in a political scandal involving budget leaks.

Early life

Born in Neath
Neath
Neath is a town and community situated in the principal area of Neath Port Talbot, Wales, UK with a population of approximately 45,898 in 2001...

, in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

, his father, John Neale Dalton
John Neale Dalton
Canon John Neale Dalton KCVO CMG was a chaplain to Queen Victoria and tutor to King George V of the United Kingdom.-Life history:...

 was chaplain to Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....

 and tutor to the future King
George V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....

.

Dalton was educated at Summer Fields School
Summer Fields School
Summer Fields is a boys' independent preparatory school based in Summertown, Oxford, England.-History:Originally called Summerfield, it became a Boys' Preparatory School in 1864 with seven pupils. Its owner, Archibald Maclaren, was a fencing teacher who ran a gymnasium in Oxford; he himself was...

 in Summertown
Summertown, Oxford
Summertown in North Oxford is a suburb of Oxford, England.Summertown is a residential area, one mile square north of St Giles, the beautiful boulevard leading out of Oxford’s city centre. Summertown is home to exclusive schools and the city’s most expensive houses. On both sides of Banbury Road are...

, a suburb of Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

, and then at Eton College
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

, in the small town of Eton
Eton, Berkshire
Eton is a town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, lying on the opposite bank of the River Thames to Windsor and connected to it by Windsor Bridge. The parish also includes the large village of Eton Wick, 2 miles west of the town, and has a population of 4,980. Eton was in Buckinghamshire until...

 in Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...

, where he was head of his house, but was disappointed not to be elected to "Pop". After leaving school he went up to King's College, Cambridge
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....

, where his socialist views, then very rare amongst undergraduates, earned him the nickname "Comrade Hugh". Whilst there, he made three unsuccessful attempts to be elected Secretary of the Cambridge Union.

He went on to study at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

 and the Middle Temple
Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn...

. During the First World War, he was called up into the Army Service Corps, later transferring to the Royal Artillery
Royal Artillery
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery , is the artillery arm of the British Army. Despite its name, it comprises a number of regiments.-History:...

. He served as a Lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...

 on the French and Italian Fronts, where he was awarded the Italian decoration, the Medaglia di Bronzo al Valor Militare, in recognition of his 'contempt for danger' during the retreat from Caporetto; he later wrote a memoir of the war called With British Guns in Italy. Following demobilisation, he returned to the LSE and the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

 as a lecturer, where he was awarded a PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 for a thesis on the principles of public finance in 1920.

Political career

Dalton stood unsuccessfully for 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...

 four times: at the Cambridge by-election, 1922
Cambridge by-election, 1922
The Cambridge by-election, 1922 was a by-election held on 16 March 1922 for the British House of Commons constituency of Cambridge.The by-election was caused by the resignation on 7 November 1921 of the town's Conservative Party Member of Parliament Sir Eric Geddes, who had held the seat since...

, in Maidstone
Maidstone (UK Parliament constituency)
Maidstone was a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.The parliamentary borough of Maidstone returned two Members of Parliament from 1552 until 1885, when its representation was reduced to one member...

 at the 1922 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1922
The United Kingdom general election of 1922 was held on 15 November 1922. It was the first election held after most of the Irish counties left the United Kingdom to form the Irish Free State, and was won by Andrew Bonar Law's Conservatives, who gained an overall majority over Labour, led by John...

, in Cardiff East
Cardiff East (UK Parliament constituency)
Cardiff East was a parliamentary constituency in Cardiff which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1918 until it was abolished for the 1950 general election.- Members of Parliament :...

 at the 1923 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1923
-Seats summary:-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987*-External links:***...

, and the Holland with Boston by-election, 1924
Holland with Boston by-election, 1924
The Holland with Boston by-election, 1924 was a by-election held on 31st July 1924 for the British House of Commons constituency of Holland with Boston in Lincolnshire....

, before entering Parliament for Peckham
Peckham (UK Parliament constituency)
Peckham was a borough constituency in South London which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom...

 at the 1924 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1924
- Seats summary :- References :* F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987* - External links :* * *...

.

At the 1929 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1929
-Seats summary:-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987*-External links:***...

, he succeeded his wife Ruth Dalton
Ruth Dalton
Florence Ruth Dalton , known as Ruth Dalton and later Lady Dalton, was a British Labour Party politician...

 as Labour Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP) for Bishop Auckland
Bishop Auckland (UK Parliament constituency)
Bishop Auckland is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election. Since 1935 it has elected Labour MPs.-Boundaries:...

 in 1929 and became a junior Foreign Office minister in the second Labour Government. As with most other Labour MPs, he lost his seat in 1931, though he was re-elected in 1935. During the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 coalition, 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...

 appointed him Minister of Economic Warfare
Minister of Economic Warfare
The Minister of Economic Warfare was a British government position which existed during the Second World War. The minister was in charge of the Special Operations Executive.-Ministers of Economic Warfare 1939-1945:...

 from 1940 and he established the Special Operations Executive
Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive was a World War II organisation of the United Kingdom. It was officially formed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton on 22 July 1940, to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Axis powers and to instruct and aid local...

, and was later a member of the executive committee of the Political Warfare Executive
Political Warfare Executive
During World War II, the Political Warfare Executive was a British clandestine body created to produce and disseminate both white and black propaganda, with the aim of damaging enemy morale and sustaining the morale of the Occupied countries....

. He became President of the Board of Trade in 1942; the future Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell
Hugh Gaitskell
Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell CBE was a British Labour politician, who held Cabinet office in Clement Attlee's governments, and was the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955, until his death in 1963.-Early life:He was born in Kensington, London, the third and youngest...

, drafted into the Civil Service during the war, was his Principal Private Secretary.

Although a Labour politician Dalton was a strong supporter of Churchill during the crisis of May, 1940, when Lord Halifax and other Conservative supporters of appeasement
Appeasement
The term appeasement is commonly understood to refer to a diplomatic policy aimed at avoiding war by making concessions to another power. Historian Paul Kennedy defines it as "the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and...

 in the war cabinet
War Cabinet
A War Cabinet is a committee formed by a government in a time of war. It is usually a subset of the full executive cabinet of ministers. It is also quite common for a War Cabinet to have senior military officers and opposition politicians as members....

 urged a compromise peace.

After the Labour victory in the 1945 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1945
The United Kingdom general election of 1945 was a general election held on 5 July 1945, with polls in some constituencies delayed until 12 July and in Nelson and Colne until 19 July, due to local wakes weeks. The results were counted and declared on 26 July, due in part to the time it took to...

, Dalton had been expected to become Foreign Secretary, but instead the job was given to Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin was a British trade union leader and Labour politician. He served as general secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union from 1922 to 1945, as Minister of Labour in the war-time coalition government, and as Foreign Secretary in the post-war Labour Government.-Early...

. Dalton became 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...

 and nationalised the Bank of England
Bank of England
The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694, it is the second oldest central bank in the world...

 in 1946. In the same year Dalton established a £50million National Land Fund
National Land Fund
The National Land Fund of the United Kingdom was created in 1946 to secure culturally significant property for the nation as a memorial to the dead of World War II. Proposed by Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Dalton, the Fund was confirmed in section 48 of the Finance Act 1946 with a sum of...

, for the purchase of land and buildings with a view to preserving them for the nation as "a thank-offering for victory and a war-memorial". Alongside Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...

, Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin was a British trade union leader and Labour politician. He served as general secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union from 1922 to 1945, as Minister of Labour in the war-time coalition government, and as Foreign Secretary in the post-war Labour Government.-Early...

, Herbert Morrison
Herbert Morrison
Herbert Stanley Morrison, Baron Morrison of Lambeth, CH, PC was a British Labour politician; he held a various number of senior positions in the Cabinet, including Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister.-Early life:Morrison was the son of a police constable and was born in...

 and Stafford Cripps
Stafford Cripps
Sir Richard Stafford Cripps was a British Labour politician of the first half of the 20th century. During World War II he served in a number of positions in the wartime coalition, including Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Minister of Aircraft Production...

 Dalton was initially seen as one of the "Big Five" of the Labour Government.

During this time Britain, whose overseas investments had been sold to pay for the war (thus losing Britain their income), was suffering severe balance of payments problems to pay for the effort of maintaining a global military presence. The American loan negotiated 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...

 in 1946 was soon exhausted, and by 1947 rationing had to be tightened and the convertibility of the pound suspended. In the atmosphere of crisis Herbert Morrison
Herbert Morrison
Herbert Stanley Morrison, Baron Morrison of Lambeth, CH, PC was a British Labour politician; he held a various number of senior positions in the Cabinet, including Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister.-Early life:Morrison was the son of a police constable and was born in...

 and Stafford Cripps
Stafford Cripps
Sir Richard Stafford Cripps was a British Labour politician of the first half of the 20th century. During World War II he served in a number of positions in the wartime coalition, including Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Minister of Aircraft Production...

 intrigued to replace Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...

 with Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin was a British trade union leader and Labour politician. He served as general secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union from 1922 to 1945, as Minister of Labour in the war-time coalition government, and as Foreign Secretary in the post-war Labour Government.-Early...

 as Prime Minister; Bevin refused to play along and Attlee bought off Cripps by giving him Morrison's responsibilities for economic planning. Ironically, of the "Big Five" it was to be Dalton who ultimately fell victim to the events of that year.

Dalton was under great strain. Walking into the House of Commons to give the autumn 1947 Budget speech, he made an off-the-cuff remark to a journalist, telling him of some of the tax changes in the budget, which was printed in the early edition of the evening papers before he had completed his speech, and whilst the stock market was still open. This led to his resignation for leaking a Budget secret; he was succeeded by Stafford Cripps
Stafford Cripps
Sir Richard Stafford Cripps was a British Labour politician of the first half of the 20th century. During World War II he served in a number of positions in the wartime coalition, including Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Minister of Aircraft Production...

. Though initially implicated in the allegations that led to the Lynskey tribunal
Lynskey tribunal
The Lynskey tribunal was a tribunal of inquiry into allegations of corruption among British government ministers and civil servants. The allegations raised public alarm and disgust in the economic climate of austerity that prevailed in contemporary Britain...

 in 1948, he was ultimately exonerated.

In 1948 he returned to the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is, in modern times, a ministerial office in the government of the United Kingdom that includes as part of its duties, the administration of the estates and rents of the Duchy of Lancaster...

, then became Minister of Town and Country Planning in 1950, renamed as Minister of Local Government and Planning in 1951. He still had the ear of the Prime Minister, and enjoyed promoting the careers of candidates with potential, but was no longer a major political player as he had been until 1947. He left government after the 1951 General Election.

Budgetary policy under Dalton was strongly progressive, as characterised by policies such as increased food subsidies, heavily subsidised rents to council house tenants, the lifting of restrictions of house-building, the financing of national assistance and family allowances, and extensive assistance to rural communities and Development Areas.

Food subsidies were maintained at high wartime levels in order to restrain living costs, while taxation structures were altered to benefit low-wage earners, with some 2.5 million workers taken out of the tax system altogether in Dalton’s first two budgets. There were also increases in surtax and death duties, which were opposed by the Opposition. According to one historian, Dalton’s policies as Chancellor reflected “an unprecedented emphasis by central government on the redistribution of income”.

He was president of the Ramblers' Association from 1948 to 1950 and Master of the Drapers' Company in 1958-59. He was made a life peer
Life peer
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the Peerage whose titles cannot be inherited. Nowadays life peerages, always of baronial rank, are created under the Life Peerages Act 1958 and entitle the holders to seats in the House of Lords, presuming they meet qualifications such as...

 as Baron Dalton, of Forest and Frith in the County Palatine of Durham
Durham
Durham is a city in north east England. It is within the County Durham local government district, and is the county town of the larger ceremonial county...

 in 1960.

Although Dalton was married and had a daughter who died in infancy in the early 1920s, his biographer Ben Pimlott
Ben Pimlott
Benjamin John Pimlott, known as Ben Pimlott , was a British historian of the post-war period in Britain...

 suggested that he was a repressed homosexual. As a young man, Dalton was close to the poet Rupert Brooke
Rupert Brooke
Rupert Chawner Brooke was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially The Soldier...

, who died of disease on his way to Gallipoli in 1915, and in later years, he acted as a mentor to various handsome young men - who were almost uniformly heterosexual. One notable beneficiary of Dalton's support was Anthony Crosland
Anthony Crosland
Charles Anthony Raven Crosland , otherwise Tony Crosland or C.A.R. Crosland, was a British Labour Party politician and author. He served as Member of Parliament for South Gloucestershire and later for Great Grimsby...

, whom Dalton talent-spotted at the Oxford Union in 1946 and whose selection for a winnable seat for the 1950 General Election Dalton later helped to arrange. Another was James Callaghan
James Callaghan
Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, KG, PC , was a British Labour politician, who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980...

.

His papers, including his diaries, are held at the London School of Economics Library.

Contributions in Economics

Dalton substantially expanded Max Otto Lorenz's work in the measurement of income inequality, offering both an expanded array of techniques but also a set of principles by which to comprehend shifts in an income distribution, thereby providing a more compelling theoretical basis for understanding relationships between incomes (1920). Following a suggestion by Pigou
Arthur Cecil Pigou
Arthur Cecil Pigou was an English economist. As a teacher and builder of the school of economics at the University of Cambridge he trained and influenced many Cambridge economists who went on to fill chairs of economics around the world...

 (1912, p. 24), Dalton proposed the condition that a transfer of income from a richer to a poorer person, so long as that transfer does not reverse the ranking of the two, will result in greater equity (Dalton, p. 351). This principle has come to be known as the (see, e.g., Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...

, 1973). Dalton offered a theoretical proposition of a positive functional relationship between income and economic welfare, stating that economic welfare increases at an exponentially decreasing rate with increased income, leading to the conclusion that maximum social welfare is achievable only when all incomes are equal (Rogers, 2004).

External links

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