Arthur Greenwood

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Arthur Greenwood CH (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.

Greenwood became deputy leader of the Labour Party under Clement Attlee, with Winston Churchill appointing 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. After that his position declined and he resigned in 1943. Until the end of World War II he 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.

[edit] Offices held

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by: George Brown Hillman	Member of Parliament for Wakefield 1932–1954	Succeeded by: Arthur Creech Jones
Political offices
Preceded by: Neville Chamberlain	Minister of Health 1929–1931	Succeeded by: Neville Chamberlain
Preceded by: Frederick Pethick-Lawrence	Leader of the Opposition 1942–1945	Succeeded by: Clement Attlee
Preceded by: The Lord Beaverbrook	Lord Privy Seal 1945–1947	Succeeded by: The Lord Inman
Preceded by: Vacant	Paymaster-General 1946–1947	Succeeded by: Hilary Marquand