Hugh Gaitskell educated at Dragon School
Early life
Hugh Gaitskell was born in Kensington, London, the third and youngest child of Arthur Gaitskell (1869–1915), of the Indian Civil Service, and Adelaide Mary, née Jamieson (died 1956), whose father, George Jamieson, was consul-general in Shanghai and prior to that had been Judge of the British Supreme Court for China and Japan. He was known as "Sam" as a child. The Gaitskells had a long family connection with the Indian Army, and he spent his childhood in Burma. After his father's death, his mother soon remarried and returned to Burma, leaving him at boarding school.Gaitskell was educated at the Dragon School from 1912 to 1919, where he was a friend of the future poet John Betjeman. He then attended Winchester College from 1919 to 1924.He attended New College, Oxford, from 1924 to 1927. Studying under G. D. H. Cole, Gaitskell became a socialist and wrote a long essay on Chartism, arguing that the working class needed middle class leadership. Gaitskell's first political involvement came about as a result of the General Strike of 1926. Most students supported the government and many volunteered for civil defence duties, or helped to run essential services. Gaitskell, unusually, supported the strikers and acted as a driver for people like his Oxford contemporary Evan Durbin and Cole's wife Margaret, who made speeches and delivered the trade union newspaper British Worker. After the collapse of the General Strike, Gaitskell spent another six months raising funds for the miners, whose dispute (technically a lockout rather than a strike) did not end until November. He graduated with a first-class degree in Philosophy, politics and economics in 1927.
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