Shirley Catherine Wynne Summerskill (born 9 September 1931) is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 Labour Party

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 politician and former government minister.

Summerskill was educated at St Paul's Girls' School

St Paul's Girls' School

St Paul's Girls' School is a senior independent school, located in Brook Green, Hammersmith, in West London, England.-History:In 1904 a new day school for girls was established by the trustees of the Dean Colet Foundation , which had run St Paul's School for boys since the sixteenth century...

 and Somerville College, Oxford

Somerville College, Oxford

Somerville College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, and was one of the first women's colleges to be founded there...

 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

Medical Practitioners' Union

The Medical Practitioners' Union is a section of Unite the Union, a trade union in the United Kingdom.The union was founded as the Medico-Political Union in 1914 and was renamed the Medical Practitioners' Union in 1922. It amalgamated with the Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial...

.

After unsuccessfully contesting the Blackpool North by-election, 1962

Blackpool North by-election, 1962

In 1962, Blackpool North held a by-election that was newsworthy. The by-election for the British House of Commons constituency of Blackpool North, in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, was held on 13 March 1962....

, Summerskill was elected as Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Halifax

Halifax (UK Parliament constituency)

Halifax is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first-past-the-post system of election.- Boundaries :...

 in the 1964 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1964

The United Kingdom general election of 1964 was held on 15 October 1964, more than five years after the preceding election, and thirteen years after the Conservative Party had retaken power...

. After being a Labour shadow minister for Health from 1970–74, she served as a junior minister in the Home Office

Home Office

The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...

 throughout the 1974-79 Labour government, under two Home Secretaries

Home Secretary

The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...

: Roy Jenkins

Roy Jenkins

Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead OM, PC was a British politician.The son of a Welsh coal miner who later became a union official and Labour MP, Roy Jenkins served with distinction in World War II. Elected to Parliament as a Labour member in 1948, he served in several major posts in...

 and Merlyn Rees.

When Labour returned to opposition after the Conservative victory in the 1979 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1979

The United Kingdom general election of 1979 was held on 3 May 1979 to elect 635 members to the British House of Commons. The Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher ousted the incumbent Labour government of James Callaghan with a parliamentary majority of 43 seats...

, Summerskill became an opposition spokesperson on Home Affairs. She lost her seat in the 1983 general election

United Kingdom general election, 1983

The 1983 United Kingdom general election was held on 9 June 1983. It gave the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher the most decisive election victory since that of Labour in 1945...

 to the Conservative Roy Galley

Roy Galley

Roy Galley is a British Conservative Party politician who was elected as Member of Parliament for Halifax in the 1983 general election, defeating the sitting Labour MP Dr Shirley Summerskill....

.

Personal life

Sumerskill married lawyer and future Labour MP John Ryman

John Ryman

John Ryman QC is a former British Labour Party Member of Parliament who sat as an independent MP for his last year in the House of Commons.Ryman was a barrister and a fox-hunter...

 in 1957, they divorced in 1971.

Her mother Edith Summerskill had also been a Labour MP and government minister; her nephew, Ben Summerskill

Ben Summerskill

Ben Jeffrey Peter Summerskill OBE is a British businessman and journalist, who is the Chief Executive of the UK-based Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual equality organisation Stonewall, now the largest gay equality body in Europe...

 is chief executive of the UK gay equality charity Stonewall

Stonewall (UK)

Stonewall is a lesbian, gay and bisexual rights charity in the United Kingdom named after the Stonewall Inn of Stonewall riots fame. Now the largest gay equality organization not only in the UK but in Europe, it was formed in 1989 by political activists and others lobbying against section 28 of the...

.

External links