James Chuter Ede

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James Chuter Ede PC, Baron Chuter Ede (1882-1965) was a British Labour politician, born in Epsom, Surrey.

Cguter Ede's father was a shopkeeper of Unitarian religious convictions. He studied at Christ's College, Cambridge and worked as a teacher (1905-1914), after which he was active within the National Union of Teachers. He served between 1920 and 1927 on Epsom Urban District Council and Surrey County Council and was charter mayor of Epsom and Ewell in 1937.

He first became a Member of Parliament in 1923 for Mitcham, losing a year later, then holding the Tyneside seat of South Shields 1929-31 and again from 1935. In the wartime coalition he held junior ministerial office in the Board of Education. He was Home Secretary in the 1945 Labour government of Clement Attlee, and Leader of the House of Commons in 1951. He was closely involved in the drafting of the Butler Education Act and the Criminal Justice Act of 1948. In 1964 he left the Commons, taking a life peerage as Baron Chuter Ede of Epsom.

Chuter Ede Education Centre in South Shields is named after him. It was formerly a comprehensive school.

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