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Stafford Cripps
‐
Labour politician and diplomat who led the Cripps Mission to India in 1942
Other names
Sir Richard Stafford Cripps
Place of birth
Place of death
Bircher Benner Clinic, Zurich, Switzerland
About
Stafford Cripps was born in 1889 in London to Charles Alfred Cripps and his wife Theresa. His father was a Conservative MP and later a Labour cabinet minister.
After turning down a scholarship to New College, Oxford in 1907, he studied for an MSc degree at University College, London. In 1911 he married Isobel Cripps (née Swithinbank), whom he had met a year earlier when helping out with his father's campaign. When war broke out in 1914, Cripps, still recovering from a breakdown, did not join the forces. Instead, he became a lorry driver for the Red Cross. In 1929 Cripps joined the Labour Party and became a minister in Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government the year after. His campaign to become an MP was supported by Sukhsagar Datta. In 1933 he became Chairman of the Socialist League, which he dissolved in 1937. Cripps was also heavily involved with the Left Book Club.
At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Cripps went on a tour of India, China, Russia and the United States. Cripps' first visit to India was intended to explore the possibility of self-government; he was warmly received by Jawaharlal Nehru. After India he went to China where he befriended Chiang Kai-shek, then he went to Russia where he met Foreign Minister Molotov. From June 1940 to January 1942 he served as the British Ambassador to the Soviet Union. Cripps succeeded in bringing Russia and Britain together as allies during the war, and consequently, in February 1942, Churchill brought Cripps into the government as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons. Only a month later, on 22 March, Cripps would fly to Delhi on the so-called Cripps Mission, which was intended to secure Indian self-government after the war in return for support in the British war effort. The Cripps Mission failed and the Indian National Congress and the British Government became further estranged. The failure of the mission was the catalyst for Gandhi to launch the Quit India movement in August 1942. After his return to Britain, Cripps' status within the government had diminished and in the autumn of that year he resigned from the War Cabinet and took up the post of Minister of Aircraft Production.
After Clement Attlee's Labour victory in 1945, Cripps remained interested in the question of Indian independence, and from March to June 1946 Cripps travelled to India for the third time, along with Secretary of State, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, and Lord of the Admiralty, A. V. Alexander. The Cabinet Mission's offer of a three-tier structure was accepted by Jinnah and the Muslim League but Gandhi and the Congress turned it down. Cripps realized that the future government of India lay in the hands of the Indian leaders. By the end of 1946, at the behest of Cripps, Attlee appointed Lord Mountbatten the last Viceroy of India and set a date for British withdrawal. This paved the way to Independence and partition in 1947.
In 1947 Cripps was appointed Minister for Economic Affairs but took over the post of Chancellor of Exchequer six weeks later. He fought hard to restore the British economy in the post-war years. At this point, Cripps was also seriously ill and was convalescing at the Bircher Benner clinic in Zürich. Cripps resigned as Chancellor and as MP on 20 October 1950 on the grounds of ill health. He died at the Bircher Benner Clinic on 21 April 1952.
Albert Alexander, Clement Attlee, Claude Auchinleck, Abul Kalam Azad, Barbara Castle, Winston Churchill, Sukhsagar Datta, Michael Foot, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Agatha Harrison, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Louis Johnson, Chiang Kai-shek, Harold Laski, Lord Linlithgow, Krishna Menon, Naomi Mitchison, Lord Mountbatten, Jawaharlal Nehru, George Padmore, Vallabhbhai Patel, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, Paul Robeson, Lord Wavell, Lord Zetland.
Can Socialism Come by Constitutional Methods? (London: The Socialist League, 1933)
'Parliamentary Institutions and the Transition to Socialism', in Where Socialism Stands Today (London: Rich & Cowan [1933])
The Ultimate Aims of the Labour Party ([London]: Labour Party, [193?])
The Choice for Britain: Capitalism in Crisis, vol. 4 (London: Socialist League, 1934)
Why This Socialism? (London: Victor Gollancz, 1934)
Are You a Worker? Where the Middle Class Stands ([London]: Labour Party, [1935])
'National' Fascism in Britain (London: Socialist League, 1935)
(with Michael Foot) The Struggle for Peace (London: Victor Gollancz, 1936)
(with James Maxton and Harry Pollitt) The Unity Campaign (London: National Unity Campaign Committee, 1937)
Empire (Speech Delivered at the Conference on Peace and Empire Organised by the India League and the London Federation of Peace Councils (London: India League, 1938)
Democracy Up-to-Date: Some Practical Suggestions for the Reorganization of the Political and Parliamentary System (London: Allen & Unwin, 1939)
The Petition: The Speech (London: Petition Committee, 1939)
Shall the Spell be Broken? Rectorial Address to the University of Aberdeen Delivered on 6 February 1943 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1943)
Britain and Austria (London: Anglo-Austrian Democratic Society, 1945)
Towards Christian Democracy (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1945)
Democracy Alive: A Selection from Recent Speeches (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1946)
The Church and the World Economic Crisis (Westminster: Industrial Christian Fellowship, 1948)
The Survival of Christianity (London: World's Evangelical Alliance, 1948)
God in Our Work: Religious Addresses (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1949)
The Spiritual Crisis: A Sermon Preached in St Paul's Cathedral (London: A. R. Mowbray & Co., 1950)
Stafford Cripps in Moscow, 1940–1942: Diaries and Papers, ed. by Gabriel Gorodetsky (Edgware: Vallentine Mitchell, 2007)
Addison, Christopher, Problems of a Socialist Government (London: Gollancz, 1933)
Baume, Eric, India! We Call on the People of Britain!! (London: India League, 1942)
Bryant, Christopher, Stafford Cripps: The First Modern Chancellor (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1997)
Burgess, Simon, Stafford Cripps: A Political Life (London: Gollancz, 1999)
Chatterji, Prashanto K., The Cripps Mission, 22 March–11 April 1942: An In-Depth Study (Kolkata: Minerva Associates, 2004)
Clarke, Peter, The Cripps Version: The Life of Sir Stafford Cripps (London: Allen Lane, 2002)
Clarke, Peter and Toye, Richard, 'Cripps, Sir (Richard) Stafford (1889–1952)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/32630]
Cooke, Colin Arthur, The Life of Richard Stafford Cripps (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1957)
Coupland, Reginald, The Cripps Mission (London: Oxford University Press, 1942)
Economic Survey for 1947 (1947)
Estorick, Eric, Stafford Cripps: A Biography (London: William Heinemann, 1949)
Gorodetsky, Gabriel, Stafford Cripps' Mission to Moscow, 1940–42 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984)
Hall, Robert Lowe, The Robert Hall Diaries, 1947–1953, ed. by Alec Cairncross (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989)
Harrison, Agatha and Bailey, George William, India, 1939–1942: A Summary of Events up to and Including the Cripps Mission (London: National Peace Council, 1942)
India League Executive Committee, India and the British Proposals (London: India League, 1942)
Labour Party Annual Conference Report (1935)
Mishra, B. K., The Cripps Mission: A Reappraisal (New Delhi: Concept Pub. Co., 1982)
Nehru, Jawaharlal, Jawaharlal Nehru on the Cripps Mission: An Authoritative Statement on the Breakdown of the Negotiations at New Delhi (London: India League, 1942)
Patel, Harbans, Cripps Mission: The Whole Truth (New Delhi: Indus Pub. Co., 1990)
Patil, V. T., Jawaharlal Nehru and the Cripps Mission (Delhi: BR Pub. Corp., 1984)
Singh, Bhim Sen, The Cripps Mission: A Handiwork of British Imperialism (New Delhi: Usha, 1979)
Strauss, Patricia, Cripps: Advocate and Rebel (London: Victor Gollancz, 1943)
Subrahmanyam, M., Why Cripps Failed, 2nd edn (New Delhi: Hindustan Times Press, 1943)
Tyler, Froom, Cripps: A Portrait and a Prospect (London: G. G. Harrap & Co., 1942)
Weigold, Auriol, Churchill, Roosevelt, and India: Propaganda during World War II (London: Routledge, 2008)
Private papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford
Correspondence with Clement Attlee, Bodleian Library, Oxford
Correspondence with Lord Monckton, Bodleian Library, Oxford
Correspondence with Arthur Creech Jones, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies, Rhodes House, Oxford
Correspondence with Bristol South East Labour Party and Its Secretary H. E. Rogers, Bristol Record Office
Current affairs recording, Sound Archive, British Library, St Pancras
Correspondence with A. V. Alexander, Churchill College, Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge
Actuality footage, Film and Video Archive, Imperial War Museum, London
Documentary footage, Film and Video Archive, Imperial War Museum, London
News footage, Film and Video Archive, Imperial War Museum, London
15271, 'What Has Become of Us?', Channel 4, November 1994, Sound Archive, Imperial War Museum, London
Oral history interview, Sound Archive, Imperial War Museum, London
Correspondence with Dame Caroline Haslett, Institution of Electrical Engineers, London
Correspondence with Sir B. H. Liddell Hart, Liddell Hart Centre, King's College London
Beatrice Webb Diary, Passfield MSS, British Library of Political and Economic Science, London School of Economics, London
CAB 127/57-154, Correspondence and papers, National Archives, Kew, UK
Current affairs footage, British Film Institute, National Film and Television Archive, London
Documentary footage, British Film Institute, National Film and Television Archive, London
News footage, British Film Institute, National Film and Television Archive, London
Propaganda film footage (Ministry of Information), British Film Institute, National Film and Television Archive, London
Correspondence with Huw T. Edwards, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
Correspondence with Thomas Jones, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
Correspondence with Lord Cherwell, Nuffield College, Oxford
Private papers, Nuffield College, Oxford
Image credit
Sir Stafford Cripps by Central Press, bromide print, 25 November 1942, NPG x88329
© National Portrait Gallery, London, Creative Commons, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
