ABSTRACT

Hugh Gaitskell’s father was a senior official in the Indian civil service. He was thus born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family. After the Dragon School and Winchester he went up to New College, Oxford, where he was taught by G.D.H.Cole, amongst others, and joined the Labour Party during the 1926 general strike. Graduating with a First in PPE, the young Gaitskell took an adult education job in Nottingham before transferring to University College London, where he taught economics between 1928 and 1939.