Frank Wise

Frank Wise was born in Bury St. Edmunds on 3rd July, 1885. Educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, he joined the Civil Service in 1908. He served on the National Health Insurance Committee (1912-14) and during the First World War was Assistant Director of Army Contracts (1915) and Second Secretary to Ministry of Food (1918).

Ben Pimlott, the author of Labour and the Left (1977) has argued: "Wise, in particular, was a man of unique background. Unlike almost any other prominent political figure of the time, he combined an intimate knowledge of economics, with an extensive experience of government administration, acquired at the one time at which planning had official sanction."

Beatrice Webb was very impressed by Wise: "Unquestionably a forceful - a hostile critic might say - a blatant personality. Burly and formless in figure, ugly hands and feet, large head, with heavy jaw and protruding under lip dominating the face, insignificant nose and eyes, set close together, loud strident voice - he is an imposing but not prepossessing man to look at and to listen to. In his statement of fact, and slovenly in his thinking, he is not an accomplished intellectual, but he has bonhomie, great mental energy, high spirits. He enjoys life: he is decisive and lucid in speech, a good debater, and I think honest. A loyal servant and good friend."

A member of the Labour Party, Wise unsuccessfully contested Bradford North in the 1924 General Election. He was elected for Leicester East in May 1929. He also became the lover of Jennie Lee.

The election of the Labour Government in 1929 coincided with an economic depression and Ramsay MacDonald was faced with the problem of growing unemployment. MacDonald asked Sir George May, to form a committee to look into Britain's economic problem. When the May Committee produced its report in July, 1931, it suggested that the government should reduce its expenditure by £97,000,000, including a £67,000,000 cut in unemployment benefits. MacDonald, and his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Snowden, accepted the report but when the matter was discussed by the Cabinet, the majority voted against the measures suggested by May.

Ramsay MacDonald was angry that his Cabinet had voted against him and decided to resign. When he saw George V that night, he was persuaded to head a new coalition government that would include Conservative and Liberal leaders as well as Labour ministers. Most of the Labour Cabinet totally rejected the idea and only three, Philip Snowden, Jimmy Thomas and John Sankey agreed to join the new government.

Wise, a strong opponent of MacDonald's new government, lost his seat at Leicester East in the 1931 General Election. He became close to Stafford Cripps, the leader of the left-wing of the Labour Party. Other members of this group included Aneurin Bevan, Ellen Wilkinson, William Mellor, Jennie Lee, Harold Laski, Frank Horrabin, Barbara Betts and G. D. H. Cole. In 1932 the group established the Socialist League.

G.D.H. Cole arranged for Ernest Bevin to be elected chairman of the Socialist League. However, the following year, the Independent Labour Party members insisted on Frank Wise becoming chairman. Cole wrote later, "as the outstanding Trade Union figure capable of rallying Trade Union opinion behind it I voted against... but I was outvoted and agreed to go with the majority". Cole attempted to persuade Bevin to join the Socialist League Executive, but he refused: "I do not believe the Socialist League will change very much from the old ILP attitude, whoever is in the Executive."

In April 1933, Wise, G.D.H. Cole and R. H. Tawney, signed a letter urging the Labour Party to form a United Front against fascism, with political groups such as the Communist Party of Great Britain. However, the idea was rejected at that year's party conference.

Frank Wise died on 5th November, 1933.

Primary Sources

(1) Beatrice Webb diary entry on Frank Wise (April 1931)

Unquestionably a forceful - a hostile critic might say - a blatant personality. Burly and formless in figure, ugly hands and feet, large head, with heavy jaw and protruding under lip dominating the face, insignificant nose and eyes, set close together, loud strident voice - he is an imposing but not prepossessing man to look at and to listen to. In his statement of fact, and slovenly in his thinking, he is not an accomplished intellectual, but he has bonhomie, great mental energy, high spirits. He enjoys life: he is decisive and lucid in speech, a good debater, and I think honest. A loyal servant and good friend.

(2) Oswald Mosley, My Life (1968)

These policies were accompanied by a considerable degree of socialist planning, such as import boards, for which I was not primarily responsible. The begetters of this method were two distinguished civil servants of the First World War - E. F. Wise and E. M. H. Lloyd - who at this later period were very much associated with us.

(3) Ben Pimlott, Labour and the Left (1977)

Wise, in particular, was a man of unique background. Unlike almost any other prominent political figure of the time, he combined an intimate knowledge of economics, with an extensive experience of government administration, acquired at the one time at which planning had official sanction - during the First War. He had been secretary of the Anglo-Russian Supplies Committee at the War Office from 1914-15, and became Principal Assistant Secretary at the Ministry of Food in 1917. He had thus seen the scope for government planning at first hand, and was able to see the problems and possibilities after the war-time apparatus had been dismantled in a way which was denied to his purely political colleagues.

Wise's own views fully emerged a year after Mosley's document, in another ILP policy statement, The Living Wage, produced in 1926 in conjunction with Brailsford, Arthur Creech Jones and J. A. Hobson, the great economist and exponent of the under-consumptionist doctrine, whose disciples included Lenin. The Living Wage was very similar to Revolution By Reason, but was more socialist in tone, and hence of the two was the policy officially adopted by the ILP. In common with most Socialists, but unlike Mosley, its authors laid greatest stress on fiscal policy. Much of the analysis, however, was along the same lines as that of the Mosley group. The emphasis was on the task of increasing purchasing power, by means of the standard Hobsonian argument for the redistribution of wealth. This was to be achieved by a major family allowance scheme, to be financed by taxation. This on its own was recognised, however, to be inadequate in a time of depression, and it was therefore advocated that, as in the Mosley document, purchasing power should be increased by means of imposing minimum wages in all industries ; this was to be achieved by the printing of new money. As in the Mosley scheme, industries which refused to cooperate (in this case, by raising wages) would be summarily nationalised. Again it was argued that higher prices would be met by bulk purchases of raw materials. The Bank of England would be nationalised to facilitate credit control; and the plan would be supported by a number of additional Socialist controls.