Shirley Summerskill

Shirley Summerskill
Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs
In office
8 March 1974 – 7 May 1979
Prime Minister Harold Wilson
Preceded by David Lane
Succeeded by John Ganzoni
Member of Parliament
for Halifax
In office
15 October 1964 – 8 June 1983
Preceded by Maurice Macmillan
Succeeded by Roy Galley
Personal details
Born Shirley Catherine Wynne Summerskill
(1931-09-09) 9 September 1931
Political party Labour
Spouse(s)
John Ryman
(m. 1957; div. 1971)
Parents Jeffrey Samuel
Edith Summerskill
Relatives Ben Summerskill (nephew)
Alma mater Somerville College, Oxford

Shirley Catherine Wynne Summerskill (born 9 September 1931) is a British Labour Party politician and former government minister.

Early life

Summerskill was educated at St Paul's Girls' School and Somerville College, Oxford, and trained as a doctor at St. Thomas's Hospital. She was a member of the executives of the Socialist Medical Association and of the Medical Practitioners' Union.

Parliamentary career

After unsuccessfully contesting the Blackpool North by-election, 1962,[1] Summerskill was elected as Member of Parliament for Halifax in the 1964 general election. After being a Labour shadow minister for Health from 1970 to 1974, she served as a junior minister in the Home Office throughout the 1974–79 Labour government, under two Home Secretaries, Roy Jenkins and Merlyn Rees. In 1980 she was interviewed by the BBC's Panorama current affairs program about Britain's preparations for a nuclear attack.

When Labour returned to opposition after the Conservative victory in the 1979 general election, Summerskill became an opposition spokesperson on Home Affairs. She lost her seat in the 1983 general election to the Conservative Roy Galley.

Personal life

Sumerskill married lawyer and future Labour MP John Ryman in 1957; they divorced in 1971.[2]

Her mother Edith Summerskill had also been a Labour MP and government minister; her nephew, Ben Summerskill, was chief executive of the UK gay equality charity Stonewall from 2003 to 2014.

References

  1. ↑ "Centre for Advancement of Women in Politics: Women elected in the 1960s". qub.ac.uk. Retrieved 2015-04-13.
  2. ↑ The New York Times Biographical Service. 6. New York Times & Arno Press. 1975. ISSN 0161-2433. Retrieved 2015-04-13.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Maurice Macmillan		 Member of Parliament for Halifax
1964–1983		 Succeeded by
Roy Galley


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