Sir Ralph Norman Angell (26 December 1872 - 7 October 1967) was an English Nobel Peace Prize winner. He was a lecturer, journalist, author and Member of Parliament[1] for the Labour Party.
Angell was one of the principal founders of the Union of Democratic Control. He served on the Council of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, was an executive for the World Committee against War and Fascism, a member of the executive committee of the League of Nations Union, and the president of the Abyssinia Association. He was made a Knight Bachelor in 1931 and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933
Angell was one of six children, born to Thomas Angell Lane and Mary (née Brittain) Lane in Holbeach, Lincolnshire, England.[3] He was born Ralph Norman Angell Lane, but later adopted Angell as his sole surname.[4] He attended several schools in England, the Lycée Alexandre Ribot at Saint-Omer in France,[3] and the University of Geneva, while editing an English-language newspaper published in Geneva.[3]
In Geneva, Angell felt that Europe was "hopelessly entangled in insoluble problems". Then, still only 17, he emigrated to the West Coast of the United States,[3] where he for several years worked as a vine planter, an irrigation-ditch digger, a cowboy, a California homesteader (after filing for American citizenship), a mail-carrier, a prospector,[5] and then, closer to his natural skills, as a reporter for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and later the San Francisco Chronicle.[3]
Due to family matters he returned to England briefly in 1898, then moved to Paris to work as a sub-editor on the English-language Daily Messenger,[5] and then as a staff contributor to the newspaper Éclair. He also through this period acted as French correspondent for some American newspapers, to which he sent dispatches on the progress of the Dreyfus case.[3] During 1905-12, he became the Paris editor for the Daily Mail.