Betty Lockwood, Baroness Lockwood (22 January 1924 – 29 April 2019) was a Labour Party activist. She was heavily involved in promoting

equal opportunities Equal opportunity is a state of fairness in which individuals are treated similarly, unhampered by artificial barriers, prejudices, or preferences, except when particular distinctions can be explicitly justified. The intent is that the important ...

for women on a national and international level.

Biography

Born in

Dewsbury Dewsbury is a minster and market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Calder and on an arm of the Calder and Hebble Navigation waterway. It is to the west of Wakefield, east of Hudder ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exis ...

, the daughter of Arthur Lockwood, a coal miner, Betty Lockwood followed an unconventional route into

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...

. She left Eastborough Girls School at 14, then continued her studies at night school. With the support of a

Mary Macarthur Mary Reid Anderson (née Macarthur; 13 August 1880 – 1 January 1921) was a Scottish suffragist (although at odds with the national groups who were willing to let a minority of women gain the franchise) and was a leading trades unionist. She ...

scholarship A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need. Scholarsh ...

for working women, she read economics and politics at

Ruskin College Ruskin College, originally known as Ruskin Hall, Oxford, is an independent educational institution in Oxford, England. It is not a college of Oxford University. It is named after the essayist, art and social critic John Ruskin (1819–1900) an ...

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...

. After attending university she became active in the Labour Party as regional women's organiser for Yorkshire, then moved to London as women's officer. She campaigned for equal pay and was instrumental in the creation of the

Equal Pay Act 1970 The Equal Pay Act 1970 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that prohibited any less favourable treatment between men and women in terms of pay and conditions of employment. The Act was proposed by the then Labour government, and was ...

. From 1975–83 she served as the first chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission and was chair of the European Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men (1982–83). On 27 February 1978 she was elevated to a

life peerage In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages A ...

as Baroness Lockwood, of Dewsbury in the County of

. She sat in the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster ...

until her retirement on 18 May 2017. Lockwood died on 29 April 2019.

Affiliations

Her connections with the

University of Bradford The University of Bradford is a public research university located in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. A plate glass university, it received its royal charter in 1966, making it the 40th university to be created in Britain, bu ...

date back to 1983, when she became a member of its council and she served as

Chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...

of the university from 1997, being succeeded in 2005 by the former Pakistan international cricketer and politician

Imran Khan Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi ( ur}; born 5 October 1952) is a Pakistani politician and former Cricket captain who served as the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan from August 2018 to until April 2022, when he was ousted through a no-confidenc ...

. She was chair of the National Coal Mining Museum for England. She received four honorary doctorates and was President of the Yorkshire Arthritis Research Campaign. She was also a member of

Soroptimist Soroptimist International (SI) is a global volunteer service organization for women with nearly 72,000 members in 121 countries worldwide. According to Soroptimist.org, their mission statement says that, "Soroptimist is a global volunteer organiza ...

International, a group working to advance the status of women and was a patron of the Born in Bradford research project. She listed her hobbies as enjoying the

Yorkshire Dales The Yorkshire Dales is an upland area of the Pennines in the historic county of Yorkshire, England, most of it in the Yorkshire Dales National Park created in 1954. The Dales comprise river valleys and the hills rising from the Vale of York ...

and

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libre ...

Family

She married Lieutenant-Colonel Cedric Hall in 1978. He died in 1988.

References

External links

Political Biography of members of the House of Lords

Homepage of Soroptimist International
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lockwood, Betty Lockwood, Baroness 1924 births 2019 deaths People from Dewsbury Alumni of Ruskin College Labour Party (UK) life peers Chancellors of the University of Bradford Life peeresses created by Elizabeth II