Later Life
His health failing, Bevin reluctantly allowed himself to be moved to become Lord Privy Seal in March 1951. 'I am neither a Lord, nor a Privy, nor a Seal', he is said to have commented. He died the following month, still holding the key to his red box. His ashes are buried in Westminster Abbey.
When, on Stafford Cripps's death in 1952, Attlee (by this time Leader of the Opposition) was invited to broadcast a tribute by the BBC, he was looked after by announcer Frank Phillips. After the broadcast, Phillips took Attlee to the hospitality room for a drink and in order to make conversation said:
‘I suppose you will miss Sir Stafford, sir’.
Attlee fixed him with his eye: ’Did you know Ernie Bevin?'
‘I have met him, sir,’ Phillips replied.
‘There’s the man I miss’.
A statue commemorating Bevin stands opposite Devon Mansions and the former St Olave's Grammar School in Tooley Street, South London.
Read more about this topic: Ernest Bevin
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Your mother named you. You and she just saw
Each other in passing in the room upstairs,
One coming this way into life, and one
Going the other out of life you know?”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings man the consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man’s subordination.... The individual is the heart of society, conserving the essence of social life; society is the lungs which are distributing the element to keep the life essence—that, is, the individual—pure and strong.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)