Edna Healey

Edna May Edmunds was born in the Forest of Dean and educated at Bells Grammar School, Coleford, Gloucestershire, where she was the first pupil to gain a place at Oxford University. Her father, Edward Edmunds, was a crane driver. He encouraged her to read, warning her that if she did not study she would be sent to work in the pin factory.[1] While studying English at St Hugh's College she met Denis Healey, who was studying at Balliol College. She then trained as a teacher and married Healey in 1945 after his military service in World War II.[2] She became Baroness Healey in 1992 when her husband received a life peerage.

Though she began her writing career relatively late in life, her books were critically acclaimed and sometimes best-sellers. She wrote non-fiction books, often biographies of successful women in powerful positions.[3] Lady Healey also made two award-winning television documentaries.[4]

She was elected in 1993 a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature [5]

She died on 21 July 2010, aged 92. She was survived by Lord Healey, her husband of 65 years, three children and four grandchildren.[6]

• Lady Unknown, the Life of Angela Burdett-Coutts (1978)
• Wives of Fame (1986) (subjects were Mary Livingstone, Jenny Marx and Emma Darwin)
• Coutts and Co (1992)
• The Queen's House: A History of Buckingham Palace (1997)
• Emma Darwin (2001)
• Part of the Pattern (2006) (Lady Healey's memoirs)

• Mrs Livingstone, I Presume (1982)
• One More River, the Life of Mary Slessor in Nigeria (1984)

• Edna Healey obituary in The Guardian
• Lady Healey obit in The Telegraph
• Edna May (née Edmunds), Lady Healey (1918-2010), Author, radio and television writer and broadcaster; wife of Baron Healey: Sitter associated with 3 portraits (National Portrait Gallery)