United Kingdom

Barbara Anne Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn (1910-2002) was born Barbara Anne Betts on 6 October 1910 at Derby Road, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England. She was the youngest of three children and her parents were Frank Betts, a  tax inspector and also the editor of the independent Labour party journal The Bradford Pioneer, and Annie Rebecca (née Ferrand) a labour councilor who was also involved in community activities such as organizing soup kitchens for coalminers. Barbara grew up in a politically engaged environment and joined the labor party in her teens.

She became a British Labour party politician and was elected to the St Pancras Metropolitan Borough Council from 1937 until 1945. During the 1945 general elections in Great Britain which Labour won by a landslide,  she was elected as a Member of Parliament for Blackburn from 1945 to 1978, keeping the seat for 34 years.  She became the longest-serving MP in the history of the House of Commons until 2007 when the record was then taken by Gwyneth Dunwoody.  She was then elected a member of the European Parliament for Greater Manchester from 1979 to 1989 and then became a member of the House of Lords after she was granted life peerage in 1990. 

During her time in politics, she had the nickname ‘the Red Queen’ because of her red hair and fiery speeches’.   Barbara Anne Castle became one of the most important Labour movement politicians and was an outstanding author and activist. She advocated for an ‘ethical socialism’ and spoke out on a range of humanitarian and political issues advocating for example for the anti-fascism, anti-colonialism and anti-apartheid movements. ‘Throughout her political career, she maintained a hard-headed pragmatism. Her ambition, she said, was “to inch people towards a more civilised society”.

Barbara was a close political ally of Harold Wilson, a British Labour party politician who was prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1964 to 1970 and 1974 to 1976.  During the 1945 election, Barbara was only put forward as a candidate after the women of the Blackburn Labour party threatened to resign if a woman was not added to the all-male candidate shortlist and she eventually won one of the two Blackburn seats and became the youngest woman out of the handful elected in that year.

From 1945 as a member of parliament in the House of Commons, she was appointed as a Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) firstly for Sir Stafford Cripps, President of the Board of Trade, and then for Harold Wilson who succeeded Cripps in 1947 and she went on to develop a close political relationship with Wilson. From 1949 t0 1950 she was a UK alternate delegate to the United 

United Nations General Assembly 

 From 1964 she put in charge of the newly-created Ministry of Overseas Development. From 1965 to 1968 Barbara was Minister of Transport and during her time, she campaigned to reduce the number of road deaths and said that ‘Hitler did not manage to kill as many civilians in Britain as have been killed on our roads since the war’. As Minister of Transport, she expanded road building and oversaw the introduction of permanent speed limits, and mandatory seat belts and breathalysers to test for drunk drivers. 

She then became secretary of state for employment and productivity from 1968 to 1970 (the first woman to hold this position) and  pushed through the Equal Pay Act; and as secretary of state for social services (1974–76), she instituted a plan to tie state pensions to income and ensured that child benefits would be paid directly to the mother rather than being included in the father’s paycheck.

In 1969 she issued a devastating White Paper, In Place of Strife, which called for the modernization of trade unions. Union leadership fiercely opposed any changes (even some Castle considered pro-labour), and union power within the Labour Party prevailed. Prime Minister James Callaghan, a longtime Labour opponent, dismissed her from the cabinet in 1976. 

Castle went to school in Love Lane Elementary School, then to Pontefract and District Girls High School and then to Bradford Girls’ Grammar School where she learnt acting and oratory skills, won numerous awards, was appointed Head Girl in her final year and organised mock elections where she stood as a Labour candidate. Shen then went to St Hugh’s College, Oxford on a scholarship and graduated with a third-class BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. She became involved in politics in college and became treasurer of the Oxford University Labour club, the highest position a woman was able to hold at that time.

While in Bradford Girls’ Grammar school ‘‘there were some aspects of the school that she did not like, notably the presence of many girls from rich families’ and in university she spoke out against the elitism and sexism that was prevalent at that time. After graduating from college Barbara worked as a journalist with the left-wing magazine Tribune ‘where she had a relationship with William Mellor, who was to become its editor, until his death in 1942’. Although Mellor was married at the time with a young child, the relationship between Mellor and Castle lasted for nearly ten years. Shen then worked for the Daily Mirror as a housing correspondent and married Ted Castle in 1944 who was night editor of the paper. They were married for 34 years. During the Second World War Barbara worked as a ‘senior administrative officer at the Ministry of Food and she was an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) warden during the Blitz’. 

European Elections 

Three years later, despite having opposed Britain’s entry into the Common Market, Castle was elected to the European parliament where she remained a leading socialist until her retirement in 1989.  She was granted a life peerage in 1990.  She died on 3 May 2002, aged 91.

Barbara Castle left a unique legacy in her political diaries which she kept during her time as a Cabinet minister and throughout her periods in office. The diaries were published in two volumes, ‘The Castle diaries 1974-76’ (London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980) and ‘The Castle diaries 1964-70’ (London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984).  The diaries were typed by Castle and provide an invaluable form of primary source material related to history, politics, gender and government providing a detailed insight into government politics during the 1960’s and 1970’s in Britain. 

She donated the diary materials to Bradford University and in 1966 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the university.  Her other literary and personal papers were bequeathed to the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. In a review of the 1974-1976 volume of diaries in the London Review of books ‘Edmund Dell said, “Barbara Castle’s diary of the period 1974-76 shows more about the nature of cabinet government – even though it deals with only one Cabinet – than any previous publication, academic, political or biographical”.

Her autobiography ‘Fighting all the way’ was published in 1993.  (London : Macmillan, 1993). She also produced a 1987 biography of suffragists Sylvia and Christabel Pankhurst. 

References

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Barbara-Anne-Castle-Baroness-Castle-of-Blackburn

https://www.bradford.ac.uk/library/special-collections/collections/barbara-castle-cabinet-diaries/

https://www.granger.com/results.asp?inline=true&image=0526426&wwwflag=1&itemx=3

Beata Ann Brookes CBE (21 January 1930 – 17 August 2015) was a British social worker, company secretary and Conservative Party politician. She served ten years as Member of the European Parliament for North Wales, and made several attempts to obtain election to the House of Commons. She was sometimes nicknamed the “Celtic Iron Lady”.

Brookes was educated at Lowther College in Abergele and went on to the University of Wales, Bangor. She obtained a scholarship from the State Department to study politics in the US. She began to work as company secretary and director of a North Wales firm.

Her early interest in politics took her into the Conservative Party and she was elected to the executive of the National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations. She was also elected as a Conservative to Rhyl Urban District Council, and in the 1955 general election, she fought Widnes which was a marginal Labour-held seat. She lost by only 1,449 votes.

She later worked for Denbighshire County Council as a social worker, and as a farmer. In 1961 she was Conservative candidate in the Warrington by-election, a safe Labour seat. At the 1964 general election she fought in Manchester Exchange. She was appointed by the Conservative government to the Welsh Hospital Board in 1963, where she remained for eleven years. Although she had married Anthony Arnold, in May 1963 they were divorced and she announced that she wished to remain known as Miss Beata Brookes.

From 1973 Brookes was a member of Clwyd Area Health Authority, where she served on the Family Practitioner Committee, and was also co-opted onto Clwyd County Council Social Services Committee. She was a member of the Council for Professions Supplementary to Medicine and had several voluntary sector posts in North Wales relating to the disabled and mentally handicapped.

European Parliament

At the 1979 European Parliament election, Brookes was elected as Conservative MEP for North Wales. She was a strong supporter of British membership of the European Communities and in 1981 at the Conservative Party conference moved a motion condemning the then Labour policy of leaving it; she argued that such a policy would leave Britain weak, friendless, isolated and bankrupt. She pointed to statistics about the economy and trade with Europe to claim that one job in three depended on Britain staying in.

Brookes made a determined effort to be selected for the boundary changed constituency of Clwyd North West at the 1983 general election, over the claims of the sitting MPs for West Flintshire (Sir Anthony Meyer) and Denbigh (Geraint Morgan). The selection contest attracted national attention and Conservative Central Office decided to stay out of the dispute. On 6 March, Brookes won the selection vote in the Clwyd North West Conservative Executive, with Meyer describing the meeting as having been fixed and Morgan saying that speaking at the meeting was “like speaking to a nobbled jury”.

Conservative Party chairman Cecil Parkinson then intervened, arising out of a newspaper report that Brookes claimed Central Office put her forward for the nomination (Meyer was a leading “wet” who was not popular with the Conservative leadership). When the Executive of Clwyd North West Conservative Association placed only Brookes’ name before the general membership for adoption, Meyer won a High Court judgment that his name should also be offered. When the full membership met on 9 May 1983, Meyer was narrowly adopted.

Brookes remained in the European Parliament. She protested in December 1983 over a BBC interview with the Welsh republican John Jenkins, who had been jailed for a bombing campaign at the time of the investiture of Charles, Prince of Wales. In the European Parliament she was a member of the Education and Agricultural Committees. She was defeated by the Labour Party candidate at the 1989 European Parliament elections.

She remained involved in Welsh Conservative politics and in 1993 was chair of the Welsh Conservative Party, and proclaimed her support for John Major at a time when he was under fire from within the party. She was appointed Chair of the Welsh Consumer Council, but her re-appointment in 1994 went ahead despite criticism from the National Consumer Council that despite her ability, a non-political choice would be more appropriate. She was awarded the CBE in 1996. On 3 May 2013 she joined UKIP. She died in 2015.

Ann Clwyd Roberts (born 21 March 1937) is a Welsh Labour Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Cynon Valley from 1984 until 2019. Although she had intended to stand down in 2015, she was re-elected in that year’s general election and in 2017 before standing down in 2019.

Clwyd is the daughter of Gwilym Henri Lewis and Elizabeth Ann Lewis, born and brought up in Pentre Halkyn, Flintshire. She was educated at Holywell Grammar School and the Queen’s School, Chester, before graduating from the University of Wales, Bangor.  Clwyd was a student-teacher at Hope School in Flintshire, before training as a journalist. She then worked for BBC Wales as a studio manager and then became Welsh correspondent for the Guardian and Observer newspapers during 1964–79. She was Vice-Chair of the Arts Council of Wales from 1975–79. She is a member of the NUJ and TGWU.

Clwyd was persuaded to stand for Parliament by Huw T. Edwards, who felt that there should be more women in parliament. She was the unsuccessful Labour candidate in Denbigh in 1970 and Gloucester in October 1974. 

From 1979 to 1984, Clwyd was the Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Mid and West Wales. She was elected to Parliament in a by-election in May 1984 following the death of Ioan Evans, and became the first woman to sit for a Welsh valleys constituency. She served as Shadow Minister of Education and Women’s Rights from 1987 but was sacked in 1988 for rebelling against the party whip on further spending on nuclear weapons. She returned as Shadow Minister for Overseas Development from 1989 to 1992 and then served as Shadow Secretary of State for Wales in 1992 and for National Heritage from 1992 to 1993.

She was the Opposition Spokesperson for Employment from 1993 to 1994, and for Foreign Affairs from 1994 to 1995, when she was again sacked, along with Jim Cousins, for observing the Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kirkuk without permission. In 1994 she staged a sit-in down Tower Colliery mine in her constituency to protest at its closure. She was a member of the International Development Select Committee from 1997 to 2005. On 9 August 2004, she became a member of the Privy Council. 

Clwyd was a Vice-Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party from 2001 until 2005 and was elected as Chair by 167 to 156 (beating Tony Lloyd) on 24 May 2005. However, on 5 December 2006, she was defeated by Lloyd by 11 votes when she sought re-election, with her closeness to Tony Blair being cited as a reason for her defeat. 

In February 2014, after informing party leader Ed Miliband and revealing her decision at the monthly meeting of the Cynon Valley Labour Party, Clwyd announced that she was to stand down at the 2015 general election. However, she subsequently changed her mind but was told that she would need to go through a reselection process as the procedure to find her successor had already been put in train by the Labour Party. On 13 December 2014, she was reselected from an all-women shortlist as the Labour Party candidate in Cynon Valley for the 2015 General Election. 

In September 2019, Clwyd announced again that she intended to retire at the next general election. 

Diana Louie Elles, Baroness Elles (19 July 1921 – 17 October 2009) was a barrister and United Nations representative from the United Kingdom. She was a delegate to the European Parliament for over a decade.

Born Diana Newcombe in Bedford, she was the daughter of Colonel Stewart Francis Newcombe and his wife Elisabeth Chaki, who he had met in his war captivity. Her father was a close friend of T.E.Lawrence, who was the godfather of her brother Stuart Lawrence Newcombe (born 1920). After education at private schools in London, Paris and Florence, she went to the University of London, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in French and Italian in 1941. During the Second World War Elles served in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, becoming a Flight Officer in 1944. Versed in mathematics she was attached to Bletchley Park and was part of a team of code-breakers. 

Elles was called to the bar by Lincoln’s Inn in 1956 and worked in the voluntary care committee in Kennington. She was director of the National Institute of Houseworkers, opening a training college in 1963. In July 1970, Elles became chairman of the British section of the European Union of Women and three years later of the organisation as a whole. In 1972, Edward Heath, at that time Prime Minister of the United Kingdom arranged for her a life peerage and on 2 May she was created Baroness Elles, of the City of Westminster. When Labour took office in 1974, she sat on the Opposition benches in the House of Lords and acted as Spokesperson for foreign and European affairs. 

In 1977 Elles became a council member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs until 1986 and subsequently was governor of the University of Reading until 1996. She was trustee of the Industry and Parliament Trust from 1985 and in 1990 a trustee of the Caldecott Community that was founded as a London nursery in 1911 – latterly a residential (therapeutic) community for children in care. Elles was appointed an honourable bencher of Lincoln’s Inn in 1993. After her retirement from politician, she spent her time supporting the British Institute of Florence. 

In 1972, Elles joined the British delegation to the United Nations General Assembly and after a year was added to the UN Sub-Commission for Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. She was nominated UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in 1975. Four years later, she resigned her offices with the UN. 

Edward Heath sent her to the European Parliament in 1973, where she headed the international office until 1978, when Elles had to make room for a Labour delegate. In the Parliament’s first election in 1979, she won the Conservative seat for Thames Valley. Together with her son James, she was returned in 1984 for another five years. From 1982, she served as the Parliament’s vice-president and two years later, stood unsuccessfully for the presidency. When in 1987, her term ended, she ran for the leadership of the European Democratic Group, however was defeated by Christopher Prout. Elles left the Parliament in 1989 and became a member of the Belgian law firm Van Bael and Bellis. 

Elles died on 17 October 2009, aged 88. 

Dame Mary Elaine Kellett-Bowman, DBE (8 July 1923 – 4 March 2014) was a British Conservative politician, serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Lancaster for 27 years from 1970 to 1997.

Born Mary Elaine Kay to Walter and Edith (née Leather) Kay, she was educated at The Mount School, York, St Anne’s College, Oxford, and Barnett House, Oxford, and became a barrister, called to the bar by Middle Temple in 1964. She served as a councillor on Denbigh Borough Council, 1952–55, and the London Borough of Camden, 1968–74. She was also a governor of Culford School, 1963–2003.

As Mary Kellett, she contested Nelson and Colne in 1955, South West Norfolk twice in 1959 (including a by-election), and Buckingham in 1964 and 1966. She was MP for Lancaster from 1970 until her retirement in 1997. She also served as a Member of the European Parliament in the British delegation from 1975, and was then elected for Cumbria in 1979. She remained an MEP until 1984, when she stepped down in order to concentrate on her seat in the British Parliament.

Gloria Dorothy Hooper, Baroness Hooper CMG, DSG, FRSA, FRGS (born 25 May 1939) is a British lawyer and a Conservative life peer in the House of Lords.

The daughter of Frederick and Frances (née Maloney) Hooper, she was educated at La Sainte Union Convent High School, Southampton, and at the Royal Ballet School. She attended the University of Southampton, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in law in 1960 and at Universidad Central del Ecuador, where she was a Rotary Foundation Fellow. Baroness Hooper opened The British School of Quito in September 1995.

Hooper was assistant to the chief registrar of John Lewis Partnership between 1960–961 and editor in current law of Sweet & Maxwell, Law Publishers between 1961–62. From 1962–67, she was information officer, to the Winchester City Council and from 1967–72, assistant solicitor with Taylor and Humbert. In 1972–73, Hooper was legal adviser to Slater Walker France S.A. Between 1974–84, she was partner with Taylor and Humbert (now Taylor, Wessing).

An active member of the Conservative Party, Hooper was the party’s candidate for Liverpool in the 1979 European Parliament election. Although the seat was thought to be safe Labour, Hooper won it by 7,227 over Labour’s Terry Harrison, a member of the Militant group. Comparing the election with the total votes cast in the 1979 general election five weeks previously, the swing to the Conservatives was 11% in Liverpool, as against 5% nationally. Hooper was defeated in the 1984 election in the Merseyside West constituency. 

Janey O’Neil Buchan (née Kent; 30 April 1926 – 14 January 2012) was a Scottish Labour Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Glasgow constituency from 1979 to 1994 when she retired from the post aged 67. 

She was born in Glasgow, a city where her father was a tram driver, and her mother was a domestic servant. She left school at the age of 14, and worked as a typist. In 1946, at the age of 19 she married Norman Buchan, a schoolteacher who later became Labour MP from 1964 for West Renfrewshire, and later Paisley South. He died in 1990.

She attended commercial college and was a councillor on Strathclyde Regional Council from 1974 to 1979, when she was elected to the European Parliament in the in 1979 for the first time. As an MEP she sat on the European Parliament’s Culture Committee as well as being involved in the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Gas Consumers Council. She was Life President of the Scottish Minorities Group (later Scottish Homosexual Rights Group and subsequently Outright Scotland). 

Her lifetime of activity encompassed many fields. She was an early and active campaigner against apartheid. She helped run the People’s Festival in 1949-52 during the Edinburgh Festival; the events helped create the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. As a Glasgow city councillor, she organised the first charity Christmas card sales in the UK. As a member of the council’s arts committee, she was instrumental in providing funding for the first films made by Bill Forsyth, who went on to direct major UK and Hollywood films including Local Hero. 

 

Joyce Gwendolen Quin, Baroness Quin, PC (born 26 November 1944) is a Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom. Quin was educated at Whitley Bay Grammar School, and Newcastle University where she gained first class honours in French and was first in her year. She subsequently gained an M.Sc. in International Relations at the London School of Economics. She worked as a French language lecturer and tutor at the University of Bath and Durham University. Quin is the grand-niece of Labour Party politician Joshua Ritson (1874–1955).

She was the Labour spokesperson on Fisheries for 1979-1984 and served as Member of the European Parliament for Tyne South and Wear and Tyne and Wear successively from 1979 to 1989. During her time as an MEP she served on the Agriculture, Women’s Rights, Regional and Economic Affairs Committee. In 1979, she tabled the resolution to set up a Register of Members’ Interests which was eventually accepted by the European Parliament.

Quin entered the House of Commons in the 1987 election as Member of Parliament for Gateshead East. In Opposition (1987-1997) she served on the Labour front bench as a Shadow Minister for a) Consumer Affairs b) Trade Policy c) Regional Policy d) Employment (dealing with the EU Social Chapter). From 1994-1997 she served as Shadow Europe Minister and was Deputy to Shadow Foreign Secretary Robin Cook.

After boundary changes for the 1997 general election, she represented the new Gateshead East and Washington West constituency from 1997 until she stepped down at the 2005 general election and was replaced by Sharon Hodgson. Quin served as prisons minister, Minister for Europe, and as Minister of State for Agriculture (and deputy to Cabinet Minister, Nick Brown). She asked to retire as a minister in 2001 to concentrate on her constituency interests. She had intended to stand for membership of a North East Regional Assembly on her retirement from Westminster, but the proposed body was rejected by a margin of 4–1 in a referendum in November 2004. In Parliament as a backbencher, Quin was the first woman to chair the Northern Group of Labour MPs and Chaired the All-Party Group for France (Franco-British Parliamentary Group). She successfully lobbied Chancellor Gordon Brown to bring in the nationwide concessionary bus travel scheme for pensioners.

In April 2006, it was announced that Quin had been nominated for a life peerage by the Labour Party. On 30 May, she was created Baroness Quin, of Gateshead in the County of Tyne and Wear. In November 2007, she was appointed Chair of the Franco-British Council (British Section). In 2010 she was awarded “Officier de la Légion d’Honneur” by the French Government. She was appointed a shadow Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs minister by Harriet Harman in May 2010, and was retained in that role by Ed Miliband after his election as Leader of the Labour Party. She stood down from this position in July 2011. She was interviewed in 2014 as part of The History of Parliament’s oral history project. 

Quin has volunteered as a Newcastle City Tourist Guide since 1976. She is President of the Northumbrian Pipers Society (since 2009) and President of the Northumberland National Park Foundation (since 2016). Since September 2017 she has been Chair of the Strategic Board of Tyne and Wear Museums.

In 2010 Quin authored a book titled “The British Constitution, Continuity and Change – An Inside View: Authoritative Insight into How Modern Britain Works” published by Northern Writers and is co-author of the book “Angels of the North – Notable Women of the North-East” with Moira Kilkenny, published 2018, reprinted 2019 by Tyne Bridge Publishing.

Norvela Felicia Forster  was born on 25 July 1931 and died on 30 April 1993. She was a businesswoman, exporter and politician.

Born in Gillingham, Kent, Forster attended South Wilts Grammar School for Girls, Salisbury, and Bedford College, University of London, where she was President of the Union Society and obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry. She joined Imperial Chemical Industries at Billingham after working for them during a university vacation, but was swiftly moved from the laboratories to management.

In 1960 she was made an assistant to Richard Beeching, the technical director who ran the company’s Development Department. She recalled that at one point the Department had the idea of filling a railway carriage with all their latest products and taking it around the country to demonstrate to customers; when Beeching asked where to get such a carriage, she did not know. The next day she heard of Beeching’s appointment to the British Transport Commission overlooking British Rail. In the mid-1960s she worked on licensing plastics produced at the ICI plant in Welwyn Garden City. She also served on Hampstead Borough Council as a Conservative from 1962 to 1965.

Forster left ICI in 1966, determined to use her experience to read for the Bar and become a patent attorney. To pay her way she worked as a business consultant, but when she secured a particularly big job in January 1968, she found she had no time to continue her studies and became a full-time consultant. By 1970, being self-employed was becoming impractical so she established Industrial Aids Limited as a consultancy business. The business grew rapidly and allowed her to indulge her hobby of yacht racing.

She became more involved in politics as a member of the Bow Group council. At the 1979 European Parliament election she was elected as Member of the European Parliament for Birmingham South, a marginal constituency which had been expected to go to the Labour Party. Her instinctive support for free trade came under pressure when she saw that only state subsidies would maintain competition involving private companies competing against nationalised steel companies.

In 1981 she married Michael Jones, but retained her maiden name in her political life. She made a study of the operation of Chambers of Commerce in the United Kingdom and other EEC member states, which was published in 1983. That year she was rapporteur on an inquiry into air traffic; her report which recommended a removal of the cartels which set air fares, and a system of rapid resolution of disputes between airlines, was rejected by a majority in the European Parliament which sought to preserve the existing system.

Forster was defeated after boundary changes in Birmingham East at the 1984 European Parliament election. She returned to business and became a member of the Council of the Management Consultancies Association.

She was the Labour spokesperson on Fisheries for 1979-1984 and served as Member of the European Parliament for Tyne South and Wear and Tyne and Wear successively from 1979 to 1989. During her time as an MEP she served on the Agriculture, Women’s Rights, Regional and Economic Affairs Committee. In 1979, she tabled the resolution to set up a Register of Members’ Interests which was eventually accepted by the European Parliament.

Quin entered the House of Commons in the 1987 election as Member of Parliament for Gateshead East. In Opposition (1987-1997) she served on the Labour front bench as a Shadow Minister for a) Consumer Affairs b) Trade Policy c) Regional Policy d) Employment (dealing with the EU Social Chapter). From 1994-1997 she served as Shadow Europe Minister and was Deputy to Shadow Foreign Secretary Robin Cook.

After boundary changes for the 1997 general election, she represented the new Gateshead East and Washington West constituency from 1997 until she stepped down at the 2005 general election and was replaced by Sharon Hodgson. Quin served as prisons minister, Minister for Europe, and as Minister of State for Agriculture (and deputy to Cabinet Minister, Nick Brown). She asked to retire as a minister in 2001 to concentrate on her constituency interests. She had intended to stand for membership of a North East Regional Assembly on her retirement from Westminster, but the proposed body was rejected by a margin of 4–1 in a referendum in November 2004. In Parliament as a backbencher, Quin was the first woman to chair the Northern Group of Labour MPs and Chaired the All-Party Group for France (Franco-British Parliamentary Group). She successfully lobbied Chancellor Gordon Brown to bring in the nationwide concessionary bus travel scheme for pensioners.

In April 2006, it was announced that Quin had been nominated for a life peerage by the Labour Party. On 30 May, she was created Baroness Quin, of Gateshead in the County of Tyne and Wear. In November 2007, she was appointed Chair of the Franco-British Council (British Section). In 2010 she was awarded “Officier de la Légion d’Honneur” by the French Government. She was appointed a shadow Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs minister by Harriet Harman in May 2010, and was retained in that role by Ed Miliband after his election as Leader of the Labour Party. She stood down from this position in July 2011. She was interviewed in 2014 as part of The History of Parliament’s oral history project. 

Quin has volunteered as a Newcastle City Tourist Guide since 1976. She is President of the Northumbrian Pipers Society (since 2009) and President of the Northumberland National Park Foundation (since 2016). Since September 2017 she has been Chair of the Strategic Board of Tyne and Wear Museums.

In 2010 Quin authored a book titled “The British Constitution, Continuity and Change – An Inside View: Authoritative Insight into How Modern Britain Works” published by Northern Writers and is co-author of the book “Angels of the North – Notable Women of the North-East” with Moira Kilkenny, published 2018, reprinted 2019 by Tyne Bridge Publishing.

Dame Shelagh Marjorie Roberts DBE (13 October 1924 – 16 January 1992) was a British Conservative party politician who served on the Greater London Council from 1970–81 and represented London South West in the European Parliament from 1979–89.

Her service in the European Parliament was briefly interrupted in 1979 when it was discovered that she held an office of profit under the Crown and was disqualified from serving. She then resigned the office of profit, and was re-elected as an MEP a few months later. After failing to be re-elected to the European Parliament in 1989 she was made Chairman of the London Tourist Board, serving until her death. It was announced on 31 December 1991 that she was to be created a life peer, but she died before this process could be completed.

Roberts was born in Port Talbot, Wales on 13 October 1924 and was educated at Milford Haven County School, Ystalyfera School and then St. Wyburn School at Birkdale. After leaving school she started work with the Inland Revenue in Liverpool. 

In 1964 Roberts was a general election candidate for Caernarfon, but was heavily defeated by the incumbent Goronwy Roberts, then a Minister of State in the Labour government. 

Roberts was a member of Kensington Borough Council from 1953 to 1971 and of the Greater London Council from 1970 to 1981. In 1981 she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her political work. She was a member of Port of London Authority, Basildon Development Corporation and the Race Relations Board, and in October 1989 was appointed chairman of the London Tourist Board. 

In 1979, in the first direct elections to the European Parliament, Roberts became a member of the European Parliament (MEP) representing London South West. When it was discovered that she was a member of the Occupational Pensions Board, for which she received a small salary from the Crown, her election as an MEP was declared invalid. She resigned from the Board and was elected again to the European Parliament. She lost her seat to Labour in 1989. 

In recognition of her political work, she was appointed a Life Peer in the 1992 New Year Honours, but died from cancer on 16 January 1992, aged 67, before she could take her seat in the House of Lords. 

Winifred Margaret Ewing FRSA (née Woodburn; born 10 July 1929) is a Scottish nationalist, lawyer and prominent Scottish National Party (SNP) politician who was a Member of Parliament (Hamilton 1967–70; Moray and Nairn 1974–79), Member of the European Parliament (Highlands and Islands 1975–99) and Member of the Scottish Parliament (Highlands and Islands 1999–2003). 

Her election victory in 1967 was a significant by-election in Scottish political history and began a surge of support for the SNP. She is known for saying ‘stop the world, Scotland wants to get on’ when elected to UK parliament in 1967 and at the European parliament named Madame Ecosse. Ewing was the Scottish National Party President from 1987 to 2005.

Ewing was born on 29 July 1929 in Glasgow to Christina Bell Anderson and George Woodburn, a small business owner. She was educated at Battlefield School and Queen’s Park Senior Secondary School. In 1946 she matriculated at the University of Glasgow where she graduated with an MA and LLB. Although relatively inactive in politics at that time, she joined the Student Nationalists. Following her graduation, she qualified and practised as a solicitor and notary public. She was Secretary of the Glasgow Bar Association from 1962 to 1967. 

Ewing became active in campaigning for Scottish independence through her membership of the Glasgow University Scottish Nationalist Association, and came to prominence in 1967 when she won the Hamilton by-election as the Scottish National Party (SNP) candidate. She was elected with the help of a team including her election agent, John McAteer. On 16 November, she made her first appearance at Westminster, with her husband and children accompanying her on the journey. She arrived at the parliament in a Scottish-built Hillman Imp and was greeted by a crowd and a pipe band.

Ewing said at the time “stop the world, Scotland wants to get on”, and her presence at Westminster led to a significant rise in membership for the SNP. It was speculated that Ewing’s electoral gain led to the establishment of the Kilbrandon Commission by the Labour government of Harold Wilson to look into the viability of a devolved Scottish Assembly. In hindsight it could be said to mark the start of modern politics in Scotland, according to Professor Richard Finlay, Strathclyde University, bringing young people and women from non-political backgrounds into politics for the first time, whilst Labour and Tory party organisation and branch numbers were declining.

Despite her high profile, Ewing was unsuccessful in retaining the Hamilton seat at the 1970 general election. At the following February 1974 election she stood for Moray and Nairn and was returned to Westminster, although another election followed in October of the same year when her already marginal majority declined. Following the October election she was announced as the SNP’s spokesperson on external affairs and EEC. She first became an MEP in 1975, at a time when the European Parliament was still composed of representative delegations from national parliaments. She lost her Westminster seat at the May 1979 election, but within weeks had gained a seat in the European Parliament at the first direct elections to the Parliament. Ewing was unsuccessful at seeking to return to Westminster as the SNP candidate for Orkney and Shetland in 1983, coming third.

She was elected the SNP Party President in 1987.  It was during her time as an MEP that she acquired the nickname Madame Ecosse (French for “Mrs Scotland”) because of her strong advocacy of Scottish interests in Strasbourg and Brussels.[13][14] That sobriquet was first used by Le Monde and with Ewing using the term as a badge of pride, it stuck. By 1995 she had become Britain’s longest serving MEP. She had been a former Vice President of the European Radical Alliance which included French, Guyanese, Flemish, Luxembourg, Italian, Corsican and Spanish (Canary Islands) MEPs.

In 1999, she did not stand for the European Parliament, instead becoming a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) in the first session of the Scottish Parliament, representing the Highlands and Islands. As the oldest qualified member, it was her duty to preside over the opening of the Scottish Parliament, a session she opened with the statement: “The Scottish Parliament, adjourned on the 25th day of March in the year 1707, is hereby reconvened”. She sat as a member on the European Committee, then the Public Petitions Committee.

During the controversy that arose in the early years of the Scottish Parliament surrounding proposals to repeal Clause 28 (a law banning the active promotion of homosexuality in schools) she joined her son Fergus Ewing in abstaining, although her daughter in law Margaret Ewing supported repeal as did the majority of her party’s MSPs.

In June 2001, having turned 72 years old, she announced that she would retire from Parliament at the end of the session. In January 2003, her husband, Stewart Ewing, died in a fire accident. He had been active with her in politics for many years, and had himself served as an SNP councillor for the Summerston area in Glasgow. Later that year she stood down from being an MSP, although she continued to serve as the SNP’s President, a position she held for many years.

On 15 July 2005, she announced she would be stepping down as President of the Scottish National Party at its September Conference, bringing to an end her 38-year career in representative politics. Her son Fergus Ewing serves as SNP MSP, as did his wife Margaret Ewing, and her daughter Annabelle Ewing, who was also an MP between 2001 and 2005.

First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon said that Ewing had given her ‘hugely valuable advice’ on public speaking, and was ‘the best street campaigner’ she had seen and that Ewing had given her some important advice as a young woman in politics, namely ‘Stand your ground and believe in yourself’ and ‘ a more vibrant, colourful, dynamic, passionate, committed person, you would struggle to meet.