ERNEST BEVIN AT TRANSPORT HOUSE: A Signed Photograph

Wonderfully evocative silver gelatin photo-portrait, signed, of the founder and secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, sat at his desk in the original Transport House, just off Smith Square in Westminster. Lighting his pipe, with a Trades Union certificate framed behind him, books and files on the window sill and a bakelite telephone to hand, it’s hard to imagine a better image of this powerhouse political operator. Around the time of this image (the NPG holds a slightly weaker image from the same photographic session which it dates to 1940) Bevin became Labour Minister during the war and finally Clement Attlee’s influential Foreign Secretary.

DESCRIPTION: Large format silver gelatin print (24x29cm) signed by Bevin in brown ink over the lighter window portion of the images. The images has been mounted on stiff card. The NPG attributes the photograph to an unknown photographer for the Pictorial Press.