Hugh Dalton (16 August 1887 – 13 February 1962) was Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom from 27 July 1945 to 13 November 1947, succeeding John Anderson and preceding Stafford Cripps. He was a member of the Labor Party.
Biography[]
Hugh Dalton was born in Neath, Glamorgan, Wales on 16 August 1887, and he was educated at Eton and Cambridge, where he became a socialist. After service in World War I, he lectured at the London School of Economics, and he entered Parliament for the Labor Party for Peckham in 1924, moving to Bishop Auckland in 1929. He was a junior minister in the Foreign Office from 1929 to 1931, but lost his seat in 1931. He was re-elected in 1935, and he served as Minister of Economic Warfare from 1940 to 1942 and was President of the Board of Trade from 1942 to 1945 in Winston Churchill's wartime coalition. As Chancellor of the Exchequer under Clement Attlee in 1945-1947, he nationalized the Bank of England, and he successfully maintained full employment. He had to resign in November 1947, having inadvertently leaked the contents of a deflationary emergency budget. He returned to the Cabinet in 1948 as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, but he was never again a senior figure.