The Men of 1924
Peter Clark
We send all orders via Royal Mail: within the UK, choose from 1st Class, 2nd Class or Special Delivery; for the rest of the world, International Standard or International Tracked. Delivery and packaging charges are calculated automatically at the checkout.
To collect orders in person from the Bookshop, choose Click and Collect at the checkout.
From the publisher
‘An endlessly fascinating account of a truly seismic moment in British history. Peter Clark records that moment by introducing us to the first non-aristocrats to govern this country. It’s a mystery why nobody thought to tell this amazing story before but nobody could have told it better. Brilliantly conceived and beautifully expounded.’
Alan Johnson
‘At the centenary of the first Labour government in 1924, Peter Clark fluently and lucidly illuminates British politics in the early decades of the twentieth century, giving insightful short biographies of the Labour cabinet and a sharp account of their nine months ‘in office but not in power’, and shows how the 18-year-old Labour Party was taken from the fringe of significance to being the alternative for Government.’
Neil Kinnock
‘The events of 1924 changed British political history forever. A good study of the government and its principal actors was long overdue. Now, on the centenary, we have it.’
Anthony Seldon
‘The Men of 1924 is a compelling account of the remarkable group of politicians who shaped not only a seminal moment in Labour Party history but also influenced our national story for many years afterwards.’
Nick Thomas-Symonds
Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour government of 1924 consisted, as governments had for generations, of twenty white, middle-aged men with a Christian background. But that is where the similarities with previous governments ended, for the election of Britain’s first Labour administration witnessed a radical departure from government by the ruling class. A majority of the new cabinet had left full time education by the time they were fifteen. Two were illegitimate, one was a foundling, three were from Irish immigrant families, another three had worked in coal mines before they were teenagers. For the first time in Britain’s political history, the government could truly be said to represent all the social classes.
The Men of 1924 is a vivid portrayal of the years preceding, and the arrival of, the first Labour government and the new breed of politician it heralded – forerunners of all those who, later in the last century and in this one, overcame a system from which they had been excluded for too long.
PETER CLARK is a writer and translator, and Research Associate at SOAS, University of London. He worked in the overseas service of the British Council for over thirty years, has translated novels, plays and history from Arabic, and written books on Istanbul and Marmaduke Pickthall. He is the author of Dickens’s London and Churchill’s Britain.