Timeline
1907
Richard Howard Stafford Crossman born in Bayswater, London, on 15 December 1
1920
Won a scholarship to Winchester. Became a Senior Scholar, Prefect of Hall, and Captain of Football 2
1926
Became a socialist whilst a student at Winchester, along with Hugh Gaitskell. They were both inspired by the General Strike of 1926 3
Won a scholarship to the University of Oxford 4
1929
Contributed poems to the 1929 Oxford Poetry, Blackwell 5
1930
Graduated with a First in an Arts Degree from the University of Oxford on 16 October 6
1932
Married Erika Susanna Gluck on 15 July 7
Fellow of New College, Oxford 8
1933
Organised a series of lectures on National Socialism 9
1934
Divorced Erika Gluck
Crossman elected to Oxford City Council as a Labour Party representative 10
1936-1940
Leader of the Labour group on the council
1937
Wrote Plato Today 11
Turned to journalism and also became a tutor under the Workers Educational Association 12
Married Inezita Baker on 18 December
1938
Adopted as Labour candidate for Coventry, but the outbreak of war prevented him from contesting an election 13
Wrote Socrates 14
Assistant Editor to Kingsley Martin at the New Statesman
1939
Wrote Government and the Governed 15
1941-1945
Appointed head of the German Division at the Political Warfare Executive in London. Worked to distribute propaganda in Germany with the BBC.
1943
Led the Anglo-American propaganda team in North Africa.
1944
Takes up as a senior post in the psychological warfare division of SHAEF (Allied Supreme Headquarters) under General Eisenhower. In this role he took part in the planning of propaganda in connection with the Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy 16
Crossman very ill (‘at death’s door’) 17
1945
Elected Labour Member of Parliament for Coventry East 18
Appointed by Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin to the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry into Palestine
1946
Wrote Palestine Mission: A Personal Record
1947
Crossman began to speak at Zionist meetings 19
1947-1951
Helped to organise the Keep Left Group – later the Bevanite Group – a left-wing group within the Labour Party 20
1952
Death of Zita Baker, Crossman’s second wife
1954
Married Anne Patricia McDougall on 3 June
1955
Left the New Statesman for the Daily Mirror, where wrote a column three or four times a week on international affairs and national politics
1960
Wrote A Nation Reborn: The Israel of Weizmann, Bevin and Ben-Gurion
1964
15-17 October: General Election won by the Labour Party. Crossman appointed Minister of Housing and Local Government by Harold Wilson.
1966
Appointed Lord President and Leader of the House
1967-1970
Secretary of State for the Social Services
Early 1970s
Crossman’s two BBC TV series ‘Crosstalk’ 21
1972
Wrote The Myths of Cabinet Government
1974
Dies from liver cancer on 5 April at the age of sixty-seven 22
1975-1977
The Crossman Diaries are posthumously published.
Andrew Burchell and Marie-Astrid Purton, August 2012
References:
1. University of Warwick, Modern Records Centre, 'Richard Crossman: Biographical Details', accessed 25/08/2012.
2. In file MSS.154/6/10/12, Newspaper Article, April 1939.
3. MSS.154/4/BR/10/5.
4. Modern Records Centre, ‘Richard Crossman: Biographical Details’.
5. MSS.154/6/9/9.
6. MSS.154/3/AU/1/54 ‘Certificate from the University of Oxford’ and MSS.154/6/10/12, ‘Newspaper cutting’, 16 June 1945.
7. Modern Records Centre, ‘Richard Crossman: Biographical Details’.
8. Ibid.
9. Newspaper cutting MSS.154/6/10/12 29 April 1939.
10. Modern Records Centre, ‘Richard Crossman: Biographical Details’.
11. Modern Records Centre, ‘Richard Crossman: Biographical Details’.
12. Newspaper cutting, MSS.154/6/10/12, 16 June 1945.
13. Modern Records Centre, ‘Richard Crossman: Biographical Details’.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. MSS.154/6/10/12, Newspaper cutting, 16 June 1945.
17. Letter from Crossman to Tosco [presumably a friend] 14th January 1944 MSS.154/3/AU/1/98.
18. Modern Records Centre, ‘Richard Crossman: Biographical Details’.
19. MSS.154/4/BR/10/157 18.3.64.
20. Crossman, Richard, The Myths of Cabinet Government, (Cambridge, 1972) p.x.
21. P.48 Anthony Howard.
22. Modern Records Centre, ‘Richard Crossman: Biographical Details’.