Norvela Felicia Forster (25 July 1931 – 30 April 1993) was a

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

businesswoman, exporter and politician.

Education

Born in Gillingham,

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, Forster attended

South Wilts Grammar School for Girls South Wilts Grammar School, formerly South Wilts Grammar School for Girls, is a grammar school in Salisbury, south Wiltshire, England, for pupils aged 11 to 18. Established in 1927, the school converted to an academy in 2011. In 2020, the name ...

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...

, and

Bedford College, University of London Bedford College was in York Place after 1874 Bedford College was founded in London in 1849 as the first higher education college for women in the United Kingdom. In 1900, it became a constituent of the University of London. Having played a lead ...

, where she was President of the Union Society and obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry. She joined

Imperial Chemical Industries Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) was a British chemical company. It was, for much of its history, the largest manufacturer in Britain. It was formed by the merger of four leading British chemical companies in 1926. Its headquarters were at M ...

Billingham Billingham is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, England. The town is on the north side of the River Tees and is governed by Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council. The settlement had previously formed i ...

after working for them during a university vacation, but was swiftly moved from the laboratories to management.

ICI management

In 1960 she was made an assistant to

Richard Beeching Richard Beeching, Baron Beeching (21 April 1913 – 23 March 1985), commonly known as Dr Beeching, was a physicist and engineer who for a short but very notable time was chairman of British Railways. He became a household name in Britain in the e ...

, 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 The British Transport Commission (BTC) was created by Clement Attlee's post-war Labour government as a part of its nationalisation programme, to oversee railways, canals and road freight transport in Great Britain (Northern Ireland had the se ...

overlooking British Rail. In the mid-1960s she worked on licensing plastics produced at the ICI plant in

Welwyn Garden City Welwyn Garden City ( ) is a town in Hertfordshire, England, north of London. It was the second garden city in England (founded 1920) and one of the first new towns (designated 1948). It is unique in being both a garden city and a new town and ...

. She also served on

Hampstead Borough Council Hampstead was a civil parish and metropolitan borough in London, England. It was an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, governed by an administrative vestry. The parish was included in the area of responsibility of the Metropolitan Boa ...

as a

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

from 1962 to 1965.

Management consultancy

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.

European Parliament

She became more involved in politics as a member of the

Bow Group The Bow Group is a UK-based think tank promoting conservative opinion. Founded in 1951, it is the oldest group of its kind, counting many senior Conservative Party MPs and peers among its members. It represents a forum for political debate with i ...

council. At the 1979 European Parliament election she was elected as

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 ...

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.

Airline inquiry

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 A chamber of commerce, or board of trade, is a form of business network. For example, a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to a ...

in the United Kingdom and other

EEC The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisb ...

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.

References

*''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'', 28 October 1972 *''Who Was Who''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Forster, Norvela 1931 births 1993 deaths Members of Hampstead Metropolitan Borough Council Members of the Bow Group Imperial Chemical Industries people Conservative Party (UK) MEPs Alumni of Bedford College, London MEPs for England 1979–1984 People educated at South Wilts Grammar School for Girls 20th-century women MEPs for England Women councillors in England