Putney's part in Labour's history

Anyone who takes an interest in Putney's history may be aware that Labour's greatest-ever Prime Minister, Clement Attlee was born and grew up in Portinscale Road.

But our borough was also home for one of Labour's less well-known party leaders - someone who would have been our first ever Prime Minister had he not been defeated by just five votes for the party leadership by Ramsay MacDonald.

John R. Clynes led Labour in the breakthrough 1922 general election when Labour supplanted the Liberals as the official opposition to the (Conservative) Government, almost tripling the number of Labour MPs elected.

He served in David Lloyd-George's National Government during the First World War as the Orwellian-titled (but vitally important) role of Minister of Food Control.

Despite Labour's general election success, Clynes was challenged by Ramsay MacDonald, and defeated by just a handful of votes. MacDonald went on to head Labour's first ever government while Clynes became Leader of the House of Commons until the minority administration was defeated in 1924.

Along with other Labour greats Arthur Henderson and George Lansbury, he opposed MacDonald's austerity measures during the General Strike and refused to follow the Prime Minister into a National Government in the 1930s, which led to a Labour election disaster, during which Clynes lost his Manchester seat. But he regained it in 1935 and served a further decade in Parliament until his retirement.

A resident of Putney during his time in London as an MP, Clynes has a pleasant little council estate, John Clynes Court, named after him in Woodborough Road, West Putney.