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Timeline

 

1907

Richard Howard Stafford Crossman born in Bayswater, London, on 15 December 1

1920

Won a scholarship to Winchester. Became a Senior Scholar, Prefect of Hall, and Captain of Football 2

1926

Became a socialist whilst a student at Winchester, along with Hugh Gaitskell. They were both inspired by the General Strike of 1926 3

Won a scholarship to the University of Oxford 4

1929

Contributed poems to the 1929 Oxford Poetry, Blackwell 5

1930

Graduated with a First in an Arts Degree from the University of Oxford on 16 October 6

1932

Married Erika Susanna Gluck on 15 July 7

Fellow of New College, Oxford 8

1933

Organised a series of lectures on National Socialism 9

1934

Divorced Erika Gluck

Crossman elected to Oxford City Council as a Labour Party representative 10

1936-1940

Leader of the Labour group on the council

1937

Wrote Plato Today 11

Turned to journalism and also became a tutor under the Workers Educational Association 12

Married Inezita Baker on 18 December

1938

Adopted as Labour candidate for Coventry, but the outbreak of war prevented him from contesting an election 13

Wrote Socrates 14

Assistant Editor to Kingsley Martin at the New Statesman

1939

Wrote Government and the Governed 15

1941-1945

Appointed head of the German Division at the Political Warfare Executive in London. Worked to distribute propaganda in Germany with the BBC.

1943

Led the Anglo-American propaganda team in North Africa.

1944

Takes up as a senior post in the psychological warfare division of SHAEF (Allied Supreme Headquarters) under General Eisenhower. In this role he took part in the planning of propaganda in connection with the Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy 16

Crossman very ill (‘at death’s door’) 17

1945

Elected Labour Member of Parliament for Coventry East 18

Appointed by Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin to the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry into Palestine

1946

Wrote Palestine Mission: A Personal Record

1947

Crossman began to speak at Zionist meetings 19

1947-1951

Helped to organise the Keep Left Group – later the Bevanite Group – a left-wing group within the Labour Party 20

1952

Death of Zita Baker, Crossman’s second wife

1954

Married Anne Patricia McDougall on 3 June

1955

Left the New Statesman for the Daily Mirror, where wrote a column three or four times a week on international affairs and national politics

1960

Wrote A Nation Reborn: The Israel of Weizmann, Bevin and Ben-Gurion

1964

15-17 October: General Election won by the Labour Party. Crossman appointed Minister of Housing and Local Government by Harold Wilson.

1966

Appointed Lord President and Leader of the House

1967-1970

Secretary of State for the Social Services

Early 1970s

Crossman’s two BBC TV series ‘Crosstalk’ 21

1972

Wrote The Myths of Cabinet Government

1974

Dies from liver cancer on 5 April at the age of sixty-seven 22

1975-1977

The Crossman Diaries are posthumously published.

Andrew Burchell and Marie-Astrid Purton, August 2012


References:

1. University of Warwick, Modern Records Centre, 'Richard Crossman: Biographical Details', accessed 25/08/2012.

2. In file MSS.154/6/10/12, Newspaper Article, April 1939.

3. MSS.154/4/BR/10/5.

4. Modern Records Centre, ‘Richard Crossman: Biographical Details’.

5. MSS.154/6/9/9.

6. MSS.154/3/AU/1/54 ‘Certificate from the University of Oxford’ and MSS.154/6/10/12, ‘Newspaper cutting’, 16 June 1945.

7. Modern Records Centre, ‘Richard Crossman: Biographical Details’.

8. Ibid.

9. Newspaper cutting MSS.154/6/10/12 29 April 1939.

10. Modern Records Centre, ‘Richard Crossman: Biographical Details’.

11. Modern Records Centre, ‘Richard Crossman: Biographical Details’.

12. Newspaper cutting, MSS.154/6/10/12, 16 June 1945.

13. Modern Records Centre, ‘Richard Crossman: Biographical Details’.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid.

16. MSS.154/6/10/12, Newspaper cutting, 16 June 1945.

17. Letter from Crossman to Tosco [presumably a friend] 14th January 1944 MSS.154/3/AU/1/98.

18. Modern Records Centre, ‘Richard Crossman: Biographical Details’.

19. MSS.154/4/BR/10/157 18.3.64.

20. Crossman, Richard, The Myths of Cabinet Government, (Cambridge, 1972) p.x.

21. P.48 Anthony Howard.

22. Modern Records Centre, ‘Richard Crossman: Biographical Details’.