Christine Mary Crawley, Baroness Crawley

FRSA The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...

(born 9 January 1950) is a British politician for the Labour Party.

Early life

Crawley was educated at the Notre Dame High School School in Plymouth before going to

Digby Stuart College Digby Stuart College is one of the four constituent colleges of the University of Roehampton. The college was established in 1874 as Wandsworth College, a women's teacher training college, by the Roman Catholic Society of the Sacred Heart, an or ...

(

University of Roehampton The University of Roehampton, London, formerly Roehampton Institute of Higher Education, is a public university in the United Kingdom, situated on three major sites in Roehampton, in the London Borough of Wandsworth. Roehampton was formerly an e ...

) to train as a teacher. After graduation she began teaching children aged between 9 and 15, and also ran the local youth theatre.

Political career

Her work to gain funding for the youth theatre brought her into contact with local politicians, and she became involved in politics, joining the Labour Party. Soon after joining the party she became secretary of the local branch, and then Social Secretary for the local Women's Branch. She was elected as a District Councillor for the

South Oxfordshire South Oxfordshire is a local government district in the ceremonial county of Oxfordshire, England. Its council is temporarily based outside the district at Abingdon-on-Thames pending a planned move to Didcot, the district's largest town. The a ...

District Council, at a time when the Labour Party was a minority party on the council. In 1983, she ran for a seat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

but was not elected, instead spending a year working on local issues before she was elected as a

Member of the European Parliament A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...

(MEP) for the Birmingham East constituency). As an MEP Crawley was active on the

Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality The Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) is a committee of the European Parliament. Membership Chair Vice Chairs *Eugenia Rodríguez Palop * Sylwia Spurek * Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi *Robert Biedroń Members *Regina Bastos ...

and helped push their Maternity Leave Directive through, becoming Chair of that committee in 1989. She stepped down as an MEP in 1999, and is now a member of the West Midlands Regional Assembly and a sponsor of the National Women's Network. She was Chair of the

Women's National Commission The Women's National Commission (often shortened to WNC) was an advisory non-departmental public body (NDPB) set up in 1969 by former Prime Minister Harold Wilson to advise the United Kingdom's government on women's views, and to act as an umbrell ...

between 1999 and 2001, and in 1998 was created Baroness Crawley, of Edgbaston in the County of West Midlands. Between 2002 and 2008 she served as a Party Whip in the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

. She is a member of

Labour Friends of Israel Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) is a group in the Parliament of the United Kingdom that promotes support for a strong bilateral relationship between Britain and Israel, and seeks to strengthen ties between the British Labour Party and the Isra ...

Honours

In 2013, Baroness Crawley was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Health from

Plymouth University The University of Plymouth is a public research university based predominantly in Plymouth, England, where the main campus is located, but the university has campuses and affiliated colleges across South West England. With students, it is the ...

Honorary doctorate awarded to Lady Crawley
, plymouth.ac.uk; accessed 6 November 2013.

Personal life

The ancient historian

Josephine Crawley Quinn Josephine Crawley Quinn is a historian and archaeologist, working across Greek, Roman and Phoenician history. Quinn is a Professor of Ancient History in the Faculty of Classics and Martin Frederiksen Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History at Worce ...

is her daughter.

References

External links

Profile
at ''

New Statesman The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members ...

'' * {{DEFAULTSORT:Crawley, Christine Crawley, Baroness 1950 births Living people Alumni of the University of Roehampton British Roman Catholics British people of Irish descent Councillors in Oxfordshire Labour Party (UK) Baronesses- and Lords-in-Waiting Labour Party (UK) life peers Life peeresses created by Elizabeth II Labour Party (UK) MEPs Labour Friends of Israel MEPs for England 1984–1989 MEPs for England 1989–1994 MEPs for England 1994–1999 People from Birmingham, West Midlands Place of birth missing (living people) 20th-century women MEPs for England Women councillors in England