Ernest Bevin was born in Somerset in March 1881. He had little formal education, having briefly attended two village schools and then Colebrook Board School (1898-1890) and Hayward's School, Crediton (1890-1892). At the age of eleven, he went to work as a labourer, then as a van driver in Bristol, where he joined the Bristol Socialist Society.

Between 1900-1906, Bevin married Florence Anne Townley, with whom he had 1 daughter. Bevin's paid work as a Trade Union official began as National Organiser of the Dockers’ Union (1910-1921). He was General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, 1922-1940, a member of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress, 1925-1940 and Chairman of the Trades Union Congress, 1937. He served on a number of commissions and enquiries, including the Macmillan Commission on banking and the Economic Advisory Council.

He was elected unopposed to the House of Commons as the Labour MP for Central Wandsworth in 1940 (a seat he held until 1950) and served in Churchill’s coalition government as the Minister for Labour and National Service (1940-1945). After the 1945 General Election, he became Foreign Secretary in Attlee's Labour government. In the 1950 General Election, he was elected as MP for Woolwich East. He became Lord Privy Seal in March 1951.

Bevin received an Honorary LLD from Bristol University in 1945 and an Honorary Fellowship of Magdalen College, Oxford in 1946. He died in April 1951.