Doris Mary Gertrude Fisher, Baroness Fisher of Rednal, JP (13 September 191918 December 2005), née Satchwell, was a British politician.

Early life and career

Born in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

, she was the daughter of Frederick James Satchwell. She was educated at Tinker's Farm Girls' School,

Fircroft College Fircroft College is a specialist adult residential college based in Selly Oak, Birmingham, England. The college was founded by George Cadbury Junior, son of George Cadbury Senior, in 1908 and offers over 150 short residential courses throughou ...

and Bournville Day Continuation College. She joined the Labour Party in 1945 and was nominated director of her local Co-operative board in 1951. A year later, Fisher was elected a member of the

Birmingham City Council Birmingham City Council is the local government body responsible for the governance of the City of Birmingham in England, which has been a metropolitan district since 1974. It is the most populated local council area in the United Kingdom (e ...

, in which she sat until 1974. Subsequently, she served as a member of the

Warrington and Runcorn Development Corporation Warrington () is a town and unparished area in the borough of the same name in the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England, on the banks of the River Mersey. It is east of Liverpool, and west of Manchester. The population in 2019 was estimat ...

until 1989. Fisher was National President of the Co-operative Party Guild in 1961 and was appointed a

Justice of the Peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

Parliamentary career

She contested

Birmingham Ladywood Birmingham Ladywood is a constituency of part of the city of Birmingham, represented in the House of Commons since 2010 by Shabana Mahmood of the Labour Party. Members of Parliament Clare Short, elected as a Labour MP from the 1983 gener ...

in 1969 at a by-election in which

Wallace Lawler Wallace Leslie Lawler (15 March 191228 September 1972) was a British Liberal politician. He was elected a Member of Parliament (MP) by gaining Birmingham, Ladywood from Labour at a by-election on 26 June 1969. However, Lawler only served for ...

of the Liberals gained the seat from Labour. In the following general election, Fisher defeated him when she was returned as the constituency MP, representing the seat until the February 1974 general election when her seat was altered in boundary changes. After her departure from 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. ...

, she was created a

life peer In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...

as Baroness Fisher of Rednal, of Rednal, in the City of Birmingham on 2 July 1974. 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 ...

, Fisher became Crown Representative of the

General Medical Council The General Medical Council (GMC) is a public body that maintains the official register of medical practitioners within the United Kingdom. Its chief responsibility is to "protect, promote and maintain the health and safety of the public" by c ...

in September 1974 and later chaired the Esperanto Group. She was nominated an Assistant Whip for Environment in 1983, an office she held until the following year. Fisher entered the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...

in 1975, sitting in

Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...

until 1979. She was vice-president of the Institute of Trading Standards Administration (today the

Trading Standards Institute The Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) is a professional association which represents and trains trading standards professionals working in local authorities, business and consumer sectors and in central government in the UK and overseas ...

). In December 1991, at the age of 72, Lady Fisher slept rough in a nest of cardboard boxes at Birmingham's St Philip's Cathedral to draw attention to the plight of the city's homeless.

Personal life

She married Joseph Fisher, a sheet-metal-worker at the Longbridge plant, in 1939 and had two daughters. Her husband died in 1978 and she survived him until 2005, when she died aged 86.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fisher, Doris 1919 births 2005 deaths Alumni of Fircroft College Councillors in Birmingham, West Midlands Life peeresses created by Elizabeth II Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Fisher of Rednal UK MPs 1970–1974 UK MPs who were granted peerages Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies 20th-century women MEPs for England MEPs for the United Kingdom 1973–1979 Labour Party (UK) MEPs 20th-century British women politicians Women councillors in England Co-operative Women's Guild