Arthur Greenwood CH, PC (8 February 1880 – 9 June 1954) was a prominent member of the Labour Party from the 1920s until the late 1940s. He rose to prominence within the party as secretary of its research department from 1920 and served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health in the short-lived Labour government of 1924. In 1940, he was instrumental in resolving that Britain would continue fighting Nazi Germany in World War II. He was also noted for problems with alcoholism.
Greenwood became deputy leader of the Labour Party under Clement Attlee. Arguably his most famous moment came on 2 September 1939 when, acting for an absent Attlee, he was called to respond to Neville Chamberlain's ambivalent speech on whether Britain would aid Poland. Preparing to respond, he was interrupted by an angry Conservative backbencher, Leo Amery, who exclaimed "Speak for England, Arthur!" A flustered Greenwood proceeded to denounce Chamberlain's remarks, to the applause of his colleagues. When the wartime coalition government was formed, Winston Churchill appointed him to the British War Cabinet as Minister without Portfolio in 1940. He was generally seen as ineffectual, but in May 1940 he emerged as Churchill's strongest and most vocal supporter in the lengthy War Cabinet debates on whether to accept or reject a peace offer from Germany. Without the vote in favour of fighting on by Greenwood and Clement Attlee, Churchill would not have had the slim majority he needed to do so.
After that his position declined and he resigned in 1943. The same year, he was elected as Treasurer of the Labour Party, beating Herbert Morrison in a close contest.
Until the end of World War II, Greenwood also performed the function of Leader of the Opposition, though he did not receive the salary.
During the Attlee government, he served successively as Lord Privy Seal and Paymaster-General.
Greenwood's son Anthony Greenwood (later Lord Greenwood) (1911–1982) was an MP from 1946 and a member of Harold Wilson's governments.
Famous quotes containing the words arthur and/or greenwood:
“London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“Oh, many a day have I made good ale in the glen,
That came not of stream, or malt, like the brewing of men;
My bed was the ground, my roof the greenwood above,
And the wealth that I sought, one far kind glance from my love.”
—Unknown. The Outlaw of Loch Lene (l. 1–4)