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From then to the outbreak of World War I, young Socialist Attlee worked with Sidney and Beatrice Webb for the repeal of the Poor Law, lectured at Ruskin College, Oxford, on trade unionism and trade-union law, and later on social science at the London School of Economics. He became a member of the Fabian Society and of the Independent Labor Party.
On & Off the Soapbox. In one year, he addressed some 115 open-air meetings for the Independent Labor Party. "Sometimes I carried the soapbox," Attlee recalls, "sometimes' I stood on it—and sometimes I got knocked off it."
Shortly after World War I began, Clement Attlee volunteered, fought in Gallipoli, Mesopotamia and France with the South Lancashire Regiment and Tank Corps, returned home four years later with a major's crowns, a D.S.O. and the scars of two severe wounds. He went back to Limehouse, and Charles Griffiths, his old army batman, went with him. Despite incessant attacks of dysentery, which Attlee had picked up during the war, he worked all day and many a night as well, speaking at meetings, getting the lads of Limehouse out of trouble and lending his kind, mild counsel to anyone who needed it. "A woman 'ud call about 'er rent," Griffiths recalls. "She 'adn't any money, see? 'Pull up ter th' fire, mother,' the Major 'ud say (they still call 'im Major down Limehouse way). 'Make a pot of tea, Griff, and get a piece of cake. Now you stop crying, mother, and we'll soon get things settled.' " Such is Limehouse's loyalty to Clement Attlee that even today the patrons of the Castle pub along Commercial Road will say: "If yer wants ter get yer face bashed in, just run 'im dahn, that's all."
Despite Equals Because. In 1922, loyal Limehouse sent Attlee to Parliament. In the first Labor government (1924) he was Under Secretary for War. Later India became his specialty. He served on the Simon Commission (1927), made two trips to India. In 1931 Labor's Ramsay MacDonald failed to carry the bulk of the Labor Party with him when he formed a coalition government with Stanley Baldwin's Tories. Old George Lansbury became head of the Labor Party for a time, but the reins of power soon passed into Attlee's hands.
Accounts of Attlee's unexpected elevation usually contain some such phrase as "despite his colorless personality." As is often the case, the phrase "because of" can substitute for "despite." MacDonald was colorful to the point of flamboyance, and Labor's ranks had loved him dearly. After MacDonald's "betrayal," the embittered Laborites wanted no more color; they wanted a man they could trust. Attlee's sincerity and staying power were patent; the Laborites gave him the leadership when Arthur Greenwood and Morrison, in bitter rivalry, knocked each other out of the ring.
Through the '30s, Attlee held the party together, ready to profit from the unparalleled record of blunders by Baldwin and his successor, Neville Chamberlain. In that decade, many Britons learned (as Attlee had learned in 1905) to "reconsider the assumptions" of the British middle class. Through the election of 1945 and into the campaign of 1950, such doubts continued to be a major source of the Labor Party's strength.