page_title: Clement Attlee
section_title: Prime Minister
hierarchical_section_title: Clement Attlee / Prime Minister
caption_attribution_description: Clement Attlee meeting with King George VI in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, following the Labour victory in the 1945 general election.
context_page_description: Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was three times Leader of the Opposition.
  The son of a London solicitor, Attlee was born into a middle-class family. After attending the public school Haileybury College and the University of Oxford, he practised as a barrister. The volunteer work he carried out in London's East End exposed him to poverty and his political views shifted leftwards thereafter. He joined the Independent Labour Party, gave up his legal career, and began lecturing at the London School of Economics. His work was interrupted by service as an officer in the First World War. In 1919, he became mayor of Stepney and in 1922 was elected Member of Parliament for Limehouse. Attlee served in the first Labour minority government led by Ramsay MacDonald in 1924, and then joined the Cabinet during MacDonald's second minority. After retaining his seat in Labour's landslide defeat of 1931, he became the party's Deputy Leader.
caption: Attlee meeting King George VI after Labour's 1945 election victory
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