Teresa Ellen Gorman (''née'' Moore; 30 September 1931 – 28 August 2015) was a British politician. She was

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 ...

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MP) for

Billericay Billericay ( ) is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Basildon, Essex, England. It lies within the London Basin and constitutes a commuter town east of Central London. The town has three secondary schools and a variety of open spaces. It is ...

, in the county of

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

in England, from 1987 to 2001 when she stood down. She was a leading figure in the rebellions over the

Maastricht Treaty The Treaty on European Union, commonly known as the Maastricht Treaty, is the foundation treaty of the European Union (EU). Concluded in 1992 between the then-twelve member states of the European Communities, it announced "a new stage in the ...

that nearly brought down

John Major Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament ...

's government. She worked in both education and business.

Early life

Gorman was born Teresa Ellen Moore in

Putney Putney () is a district of southwest London, England, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. History Putney is an ancient paris ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, England."Teresa Gorman, Tory MP – obituary"
telegraph.co.uk, 28 August 2015. Her father was a demolition contractor, her mother a waitress. She was educated at

Fulham Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandsworth ...

County School in London, leaving the all-girls

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...

at 16, at her parents' insistence to start work. She then trained to teach at

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

Teacher Training College A normal school or normal college is an institution created to Teacher education, train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. In the 19th century in the United States, instruction in normal schools was at the high s ...

, qualifying in 1951. While working as a teacher, she studied biology and zoology part-time at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

, graduating with

first class honours The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied (sometimes with significant variati ...

. After marrying her first husband, James Gorman, whose surname she would keep throughout her life, she worked on an exchange programme in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Besides teaching she ran a business selling teaching aids, Banta, and was involved in property development with her first husband.

Political career

Under her maiden name Moore, Gorman attempted to enter 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. ...

as an Independent candidate for the Conservative-held seat of

Streatham Streatham ( ) is a district in south London, England. Centred south of Charing Cross, it lies mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, with some parts extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth. Streatham was in Surrey ...

in the October 1974 general election, polling 210 votes. In the same year she founded (and later chaired) the Alliance of Small Firms & Self-Employed People. She later sat as an elected member of

Westminster City Council Westminster City Council is the local authority for the City of Westminster in Greater London, England. The city is divided into 20 wards, each electing three councillors. The council is currently composed of 31 Labour Party members and 23 Cons ...

from 1982 to 1986. At 55 years, Gorman was elected to the House of Commons in the 1987 election. When she first sought the candidature for Billericay, she claimed to have been born in 1941 rather than 1931, believing this would increase her chances. The night after she was elected she appeared on a

notable Notability is the property of being worthy of notice, having fame, or being considered to be of a high degree of interest, significance, or distinction. It also refers to the capacity to be such. Persons who are notable due to public responsibi ...

edition of the

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

late-night discussion programme '' After Dark'' when she "stormed off the set". In the 1990 party leadership election she voted for

to succeed

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...

but four years later she was one of the

Maastricht Rebels The Maastricht Rebels were British Members of Parliament (MPs) belonging to the then governing Conservative Party who refused to support the government of Prime Minister John Major in a series of votes in the House of Commons on the issue of t ...

, who nearly brought down John Major's government over the

. In 1992, Gorman introduced an amendment to the Representation of the People Act under the

Ten Minute Rule The Ten Minute Rule, also known as Standing Order No. 23, is a procedure in the Parliament of the United Kingdom for the introduction of Private Member's Bills in addition to the 20 per session normally permissible. It is one of the ways in whi ...

to give two seats to each constituency, one for a male MP and one for a female. The amendment received only a first reading. She was a prominent figure in the group of Conservative rebels over European issues. In 1994, she had the Conservative whip withdrawn for refusing to back the EC Finance Bill. At the 1997 general election, there was a massive swing towards her opponent, but she remained an MP, with a much-reduced majority of 1,356. Surprisingly she backed pro-Euro

Kenneth Clarke Kenneth Harry Clarke, Baron Clarke of Nottingham, (born 2 July 1940), often known as Ken Clarke, is a British politician who served as Home Secretary from 1992 to 1993 and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1993 to 1997 as well as serving as de ...

in the 1997 leadership election when she was expected to back

William Hague William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

John Redwood Sir John Alan Redwood (born 15 June 1951) is a British politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wokingham in Berkshire since 1987. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Secretary of State for Wales in the Major government ...

who she backed two years earlier for the party leadership, describing him as "a bad-mannered, insensitive snob whose remarks on single mothers were a disaster". She tried to stand for the Conservative

Mayor of London The mayor of London is the chief executive of the Greater London Authority. The role was created in 2000 after the 1998 Greater London Authority referendum, Greater London devolution referendum in 1998, and was the first Directly elected may ...

candidacy for the election in 2000, but was blocked by the party leadership. In February 2000, she was suspended from the House of Commons for a month for failing to disclose on the Register of Members Interests between 1987 and 1994 three rented properties in south London and for her failure to register two rented-out Portuguese properties from 1987 to 1999. The Commons' Standards and Privileges committee also found she should not have introduced a

Bill in 1990 proposing the repeal of the Rent Acts without registering and declaring a financial interest. Considered an able but maverick politician, Gorman was known for her public endorsement of

hormone replacement therapy Hormone replacement therapy (HRT), also known as menopausal hormone therapy or postmenopausal hormone therapy, is a form of hormone therapy used to treat symptoms associated with female menopause. These symptoms can include hot flashes, vaginal ...

her

tattoo A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several Process of tatt ...

eyebrows An eyebrow is an area of short hairs above each eye that follows the shape of the lower margin of the brow ridges of some mammals. In humans, eyebrows serve two main functions: first, communication through facial expression, and second, prevent ...

(she shaved them off as a teenager and they never grew back) and her belief that

rapists Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or a ...

should be

castrated Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which an individual loses use of the testicles: the male gonad. Surgical castration is bilateral orchiectomy (excision of both testicles), while chemical castration uses pharmaceut ...

. During the 2012 Local elections, it was reported that Gorman was supporting the

UK Independence Party The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of Parliament and was the largest par ...

in her home area of

Thurrock Thurrock () is a unitary authority area with borough status and unparished area in the ceremonial county of Essex, England. It is part of the London commuter belt and an area of regeneration within the Thames Gateway redevelopment zone. The l ...

. Gorman was a council member of

the Freedom Association The Freedom Association (TFA) is a pressure group in the United Kingdom that describes itself as "a non-partisan, classically liberal campaign group, which has links to the Conservative Party and UK Independence Party (UKIP). TFA was founded in ...

. She was interviewed about her membership of the association and the rise of

Thatcherism Thatcherism is a form of British conservative ideology named after Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher that relates to not just her political platform and particular policies but also her personal character and general style of manag ...

for the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

TV documentary series ''

Tory! Tory! Tory! ''Tory! Tory! Tory!'' is a 2006 BBC Television documentary series on the history of the people and ideas that formed Thatcherism told through the eyes of those on the New Right. It was nominated for the best Historical Documentary at the Grierso ...

'' (2006).

Censure by the House of Commons Standards & Privileges Committee

Gorman was censured by the House of Commons

Standards and Privileges Committee The Standards and Privileges Committee is a former committee of the United Kingdom House of Commons that existed from 1995 to 2013. The committee was established in 1995 to replace the earlier Committee of Privileges. It consisted of 10 Members of ...

for a failure to declare a relevant interest and other breaches of the code of conduct. The committee found that she failed to declare that her husband Jim Gorman owned three properties in London when she proposed the repeal of the Rents Act. Moreover, during its investigation the privileges committee MPs found she gave "seriously misleading and inaccurate information", breached the code of conduct for members and improperly contacted witnesses. She subsequently announced her resignation from Parliament, although her retirement was also influenced by caring for her husband Jim, who had cancer.

Personal life

Teresa and James Gorman were married on 18 October 1952. He died of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

in 2008. On her birthday in 2010, she married Peter Clarke, a widower, who survived her until January 2017. She had no children. In ''

Who's Who ''Who's Who'' (or ''Who is Who'') is the title of a number of reference publications, generally containing concise biography, biographical information on the prominent people of a country. The title has been adopted as an expression meaning a gr ...

'' (2014) she did not detail her marital status beyond "married".By the abbreviation ''m.'' in her sketch Gorman had

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

. She died from end-stage dementia on 28 August 2015 at a

nursing home A nursing home is a facility for the residential care of elderly or disabled people. Nursing homes may also be referred to as skilled nursing facility (SNF) or long-term care facilities. Often, these terms have slightly different meanings to in ...

in Grays,

, England.

Publications

* Gorman, Teresa, MP, with Heather Kirby, ''The Bastards – Dirty Tricks and the Challenge to Europe'', Pan Macmillan, London, 1993, (P/B), * Gorman, Teresa, ''No, Prime Minister!'', Blake Publishing, London, 2001, (H/B),

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gorman, Teresa 1931 births 2015 deaths Alumni of the University of London Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Councillors in the City of Westminster English activists English women activists Schoolteachers from London Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies Members of the Freedom Association People from Orsett People from Putney Place of death missing Politics of the Borough of Basildon UK Independence Party people UK MPs 1987–1992 UK MPs 1992–1997 UK MPs 1997–2001 20th-century British women politicians 21st-century British women politicians People with Alzheimer's disease Deaths from dementia in England 20th-century English women 20th-century English people 21st-century English women 21st-century English people Women councillors in England British Eurosceptics *