Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, was a British statesman and Labour Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. Attlee served as Deputy Prime Minister during the wartime coalition government under Winston Churchill, and Leader of the Opposition twice from 1935 to 1940 and from 1951 to 1955. He remains the longest serving Labour leader.
Portrait c. 1945
Attlee in 1950
Attlee as Lord Privy Seal, visiting a munitions factory in 1941
Attlee meeting King George VI following Labour's 1945 election victory
The Most Noble Order of the Garter is an order of chivalry founded by Edward III of England in 1348. The most senior order of knighthood in the British honours system, it is outranked in precedence only by the decorations of the Victoria Cross and the George Cross. The Order of the Garter is dedicated to the image and arms of Saint George, England's patron saint.
Badge of the Order embroidered onto the left shoulder of a Knight's blue velvet mantle
Henry of Grosmont, Earl (later Duke) of Lancaster (d. 1361), the second appointee of the Order, shown wearing a tabard displaying the royal arms of England over which is his blue mantle or garter robe. Illuminated miniature from the Bruges Garter Book c. 1430 by William Bruges, first Garter King of Arms
"Roy" Edward III, King of England. Bruges Garter Book.
Statutes of the Order of the Garter, this copy having once belonged to Emperor Alexander III of Russia