Shirley Summerskill

Shirley Summerskill    ( politician)
Born	Shirley Catherine Wynne Summerskill 1931-09-09
Nationality	British
Alma mater	Somerville College (Oxford University)
Parents	•  Jeffrey Samuel •  Edith Summerskill
Spouse	John Ryman
Party	Labour
Relatives	Ben Summerskill
UK politician and life peer who attended the 1972 Bilderberg  Member of Parliament for Halifax In office 15 October 1964 - 8 June 1983 Preceded by Anthony Barber, James Chuter Ede, Geoffrey Rippon Succeeded by Kenneth Baker, Winston Churchill II, Robin Corbett, Gwyneth Dunwoody, Clement Freud, Alan Howarth, Douglas Hurd, Edward Leigh, Nicholas Lyell, Dave Nellist, Merlyn Rees, Nicholas Soames, David Waddington  Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs In office 8 March 1974 - 7 May 1979

Shirley Catherine Wynne Summerskill was a UK politician and life peer.

Early life

Summerskill was born in London, the daughter of Dr E. Jeffrey Samuel and Edith Summerskill, the latter of whom became a Labour MP and a minister in Clement Attlee's government. 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. In the 1950s, Edith wrote a series of letters to her young daughter Shirley, Letters to My Daughter (1957), primarily concerned with their shared interest in women's rights.

Parliamentary career

After unsuccessfully contesting the 1962 Blackpool North by-election, 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 was 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 programme about Britain's preparations for a nuclear attack.

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

Outside Parliament

Summerskill authored two novels, A Surgical Affair (1963) and Destined to Love (1986). In Who's Who, she listed her recreations as music, reading and attending literature classes. She was Medical Officer for the Blood Transfusion Service from 1983 to 1991.

Personal life

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

Her nephew, Ben Summerskill, was chief executive of the UK gay equality charity Stonewall from 2003 to 2014.

 

Event Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/1972	21 April 1972	23 April 1972	Belgium Hotel La Reserve Knokke	The 21st Bilderberg, 102 guests. It spawned the Trilateral Commission.

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References

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