Betty Lockwood, Baroness Lockwood (22 January 1924 – 29 April 2019) was a Labour Party activist. She was heavily involved in promoting equal opportunities for women on a national and international level.

Biography

Born in

Dewsbury Dewsbury is a minster and market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Calder and on an arm of the Calder and Hebble Navigation waterway. It is to the west of Wakefield, east of Hudder ...

, West Yorkshire, the daughter of Arthur Lockwood, a coal miner, Betty Lockwood followed an unconventional route into politics. She left Eastborough Girls School at 14, then continued her studies at night school. With the support of a

Mary Macarthur Mary Reid Anderson (née Macarthur; 13 August 1880 – 1 January 1921) was a Scottish suffragist (although at odds with the national groups who were willing to let a minority of women gain the franchise) and was a leading trades unionist. She ...

scholarship for working women, she read economics and politics at

Ruskin College Ruskin College, originally known as Ruskin Hall, Oxford, is an independent educational institution in Oxford, England. It is not a college of Oxford University. It is named after the essayist, art and social critic John Ruskin (1819–1900) an ...

in Oxford. After attending university she became active in the Labour Party as regional women's organiser for Yorkshire, then moved to London as women's officer. She campaigned for equal pay and was instrumental in the creation of the Equal Pay Act 1970. From 1975–83 she served as the first chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission and was chair of the European Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men (1982–83). On 27 February 1978 she was elevated to a life peerage as Baroness Lockwood, of Dewsbury in the County of West Yorkshire. She sat in the House of Lords until her retirement on 18 May 2017. Lockwood died on 29 April 2019.

Affiliations

Her connections with the University of Bradford date back to 1983, when she became a member of its council and she served as

Chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...

of the university from 1997, being succeeded in 2005 by the former Pakistan international cricketer and politician Imran Khan. She was chair of the National Coal Mining Museum for England. She received four honorary doctorates and was President of the Yorkshire Arthritis Research Campaign. She was also a member of

Soroptimist Soroptimist International (SI) is a global volunteer service organization for women with nearly 72,000 members in 121 countries worldwide. According to Soroptimist.org, their mission statement says that, "Soroptimist is a global volunteer organiza ...

International, a group working to advance the status of women and was a patron of the Born in Bradford research project. She listed her hobbies as enjoying the Yorkshire Dales and opera.

Family

She married Lieutenant-Colonel Cedric Hall in 1978. He died in 1988.

References

External links

Political Biography of members of the House of Lords

Homepage of Soroptimist International
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lockwood, Betty Lockwood, Baroness 1924 births 2019 deaths People from Dewsbury Alumni of Ruskin College Labour Party (UK) life peers Chancellors of the University of Bradford Life peeresses created by Elizabeth II