A. V. Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Hillsborough
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The Right Honourable The Earl Alexander of Hillsborough KG CH PC |
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Sketch of Alexander commissioned by the Ministry of Information in the World War II period possibly based on a photograph by Yousuf Karsh ("Karsh of Ottawa")
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| First Lord of the Admiralty | |
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In office 7 June 1929 – 24 August 1931 |
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| Monarch | George V |
| Prime Minister | Ramsay MacDonald |
| Preceded by | William Bridgeman |
| Succeeded by | Sir Austen Chamberlain |
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In office 11 May 1940 – 25 May 1945 |
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| Monarch | George VI |
| Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
| Preceded by | Winston Churchill |
| Succeeded by | Brendan Bracken |
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In office 3 August 1945 – 4 October 1946 |
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| Monarch | George VI |
| Prime Minister | Clement Attlee |
| Preceded by | Brendan Bracken |
| Succeeded by | George Hall |
| Minister of Defence | |
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In office 20 December 1946 – 28 February 1950 |
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| Monarch | George VI |
| Prime Minister | Clement Attlee |
| Preceded by | Clement Attlee |
| Succeeded by | Manny Shinwell |
| Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster | |
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In office 28 February 1950 – 26 October 1951 |
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| Monarch | George VI |
| Prime Minister | Clement Attlee |
| Preceded by | Hugh Dalton |
| Succeeded by | The Viscount Swinton |
| Leader of the Labour Party in the House of Lords | |
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In office December 1955 – October 1964 |
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| Preceded by | The Earl Jowitt |
| Succeeded by | The Earl of Longford |
| Personal details | |
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1 May 1885 Weston-super-Mare, Somerset |
| Died | 11 January 1965 (aged 79) London, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | Labour Co-operative |
| Spouse(s) | Esther Chapple (m. 1908; his death 1965) |
| Alma mater | None |
Albert Victor Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Hillsborough, KG, CH, PC (1 May 1885 – 11 January 1965) was a British Labour Co-operative politician. He was three times First Lord of the Admiralty, including during the Second World War, and then Minister of Defence under Clement Attlee.
Born in Weston-super-Mare and one of four children, A. V. Alexander was the son of Albert Alexander, a blacksmith and later engineer who had moved from his native Wiltshire to Bristol during the agricultural depression of the 1860s and 1870s, and Eliza Jane Thatcher, daughter of a policeman. He was named after both his father and Prince Albert Victor, Queen Victoria's eldest grandson, but he was known as "A. V." from a young age. His parents had settled in Weston when they married, but the family moved to Bristol after Albert Alexander's death in August 1886. Alexander's mother worked as a corset-maker to provide for her children.
Alexander attended Barton Hill School from the age of three, at a cost of two pence per week. Against his mother's wishes, he chose not to continue to St. George's Higher Grade School in 1898, feeling the increased weekly charge of six pence was too expensive and that he would get nothing more from school. He began work aged thirteen, first for a leather merchant, and five months later as a junior clerk with the Bristol School Board. In 1903 he transferred to Somerset County Council's newly formed local education authority, where he worked in the School Management Department as a committee clerk. He was by this time a keen chorister and footballer, and a self-taught pianist. In later years, and until his death, Alexander was a vice-president of Chelsea F.C. – his role at the club was taken on by Richard Attenborough.
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