Barbara Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn

Barbara Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn

Barbara Anne Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn , b. Betts, (* 6. October 1910 in Chesterfield , † 3. May 2002 in Ibstone, Buckinghamshire ) was a British politician of the Labor Party . Elected to the House of Commons in 1945 , she rose to become one of the most important Labor politicians of the 20th century. She was the longest running woman in parliament until her record was broken in 2007 by Gwyneth Dunwoody . She was the first and to date only woman in the office of First Secretary of State .

Life

Barbara Castle was the daughter of Frank and Annie Betts and was born in Chesterfield in 1910, the youngest of four children . She grew up in Pontefract and Bradford . The industrial city of Bradford is considered the birthplace of the British labor movement.

Castle came into contact with socialist ideas and politics at a young age. She grew up in a politically active family where "someone always slept on the sofa". Her older sister Marjorie later worked for the London Inner School Board, while her brother Jimmie was involved with Oxfam in Nigeria . Castle herself joined the Labor Party in her youth .

Her father was a tax inspector, which he as an officer in a particular activity ( reserved occupation ) from military service in World War I was the exception. The character of his job as a tax auditor and the various promotions meant that the family moved several times. After moving to Bradford in 1922, the family soon got involved in the work of the local Independent Labor Party . And although her father was formally banned from political activity as a civil servant, in 1933 he became editor of the Bradford Pioneer , a local socialist newspaper.

Castle's mother, Annie Betts, ran the household and also helped run a soup kitchen for the town miners. After Barbara moved out, Annie ran in the local elections and was a councilor for the Labor Party - something she kept from her immediate family for a long time.

education

Early years

Castle first attended Love Lane Elementary School, then later the girls' secondary school in Pontefract and District . After moving to Bradford, Yorkshire, she attended the local girls' high school at the age of twelve. Through her commitment to the theater at school, she began to develop her eloquence for the first time. In other areas, too, she showed outstanding academic achievements and thus won numerous school awards.

She organized trial elections at her school, in which she stood up as a Labor candidate and expressed clear criticism of the school - in particular of the high percentage of girls from rich families that she perceived. Nonetheless, she was elected Head Girl in her senior years at school.

university

During her studies at St Hugh's College , Oxford, which she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with degrees in philosophy , politics and economics , Castle began serious political activity in Oxford. She became Treasurer of Oxford University Labor Club - the highest office a woman was allowed to hold in the club at the time. Castle found his time at university difficult for several reasons; she found it difficult to accept the atmosphere of an institute that had only recently begun to question its attitudes towards the inequality of men and women. Full of contempt for the elitist nature of some elements of this institute, she called the Oxford Union Debating Club “the establishment's cadet school”.

After completing her studies, Barbara Betts worked as a journalist for a newspaper that stopped appearing just a week after starting her job. During the Depression, she made her living as a commercial presenter for a food company in Manchester. In 1936 she returned to London, where she worked as an editor at the Town and County Councilor until 1940 and turned to local and regional politics.

Castle was elected to St. Pancras Borough Council in 1937 and spoke for the first time at the Labor Party's annual conference in 1943. She was a senior civil servant in the Department of Agriculture and an air raid assistant during the German Air Force attacks on Britain .

From 1940 to 1945 Barbara Betts worked in the "Metropolitan Water Board", a municipal office for the water supply in London, and from 1941 to 1944 in a leading position as an administrative officer of the Ministry of Food. 1944/1945 she worked for a year as a correspondent for the left-wing London newspaper Daily Mirror , where she met the journalist Edward "Ted" Castle , who later became the editor of the evening edition of this newspaper and whom she married in 1944.

Member of Parliament

In the British general election in 1945 , which the Labor Party won with a landslide victory, she was elected to the House of Commons for Blackburn , Lancashire .

Castle soon earned a reputation as a political leftist and an engaging speaker. During the 1950s she was a prominent member of the Labor Left wing led by Aneurin Bevan and made a name for herself as an advocate of decolonization and the anti-apartheid movement .

government

During Harold Wilson's reign from 1964 to 1970, Castle held a number of ministerial posts. She joined the cabinet as Foreign Aid Minister, making her the fourth woman in British history to hold a cabinet post after Margaret Bondfield , Ellen Wilkinson and Florence Horsbrugh .

As Minister of Transport, she introduced the breath alcohol test from 1965 to 1968 as a countermeasure to rampant driving under the influence of alcohol and also set a permanent speed limit of 70  mph . She was responsible for the shutdown of approximately 2050 miles of the British rail network by putting her part of the Beeching ax into effect - and thus breaking an election promise by the Labor Party to stop this project. On the other hand, it prevented the closure of several railway lines such as the Looe Valley Line in Cornwall and, with the Transport Act in 1968, introduced the first state subsidies for structurally important but unprofitable connections. One of her greatest achievements as Minister of Transport was the introduction of the general requirement for seat belts for manufacturers .

Although she was Minister of Transport and initially played this role enthusiastically, she could not drive herself and was chauffeured to events, for example by the young Labor Party activist Hazel Blears in the 1980s. Although she did not have a driver's license herself, there was controversy when she urged local government officials to pay more attention to free traffic in urban areas, as "most pedestrians walk to or from their cars."

As Secretary of State for Employment , she also went from Harold Wilson to First Secretary of State , which put her in the heart of government. It faced strong headwinds when the unions rebelled against the proposals in their white paper In Place of Strife to reduce their power. This led to a serious rift in the cabinet, with threats of resignation, loud emotions and the public attempt by her future adversary James Callaghan to overturn the draft law. This split may have contributed to the loss of the 1970 election.

It also went down in history with the strike of the seat upholstery seamstresses at the Ford plant in Dagenham , in which the female employees demanded that they earn as much as their male colleagues. She helped put an end to the strike that led to a wage increase so that the female employees received 92% of the wages of their male colleagues. In the aftermath of this strike, Castle created the Equal Pay Act 1970 . The strike at the Ford works was the template for the British film We Want Sex in 2010 . Castle was portrayed here by Miranda Richardson .

After Harold Wilson's election victory over Edward Heath , Castle became Secretary of State for Health and Social Services . In the 1975 referendum, she openly displayed her Euroscepticism . During a debate with Liberal Jeremy Thorpe , he was asked whether she would continue to stand as Minister if the referendum was yes. She replied: “If the vote is yes, my country needs me more than ever before.” Despite these views, she later became a member of the European Parliament (1979–1989).

Castle lost her office as minister when her political opponent James Callaghan became prime minister in 1976 and dismissed her almost immediately after he took office. In an interview many years later, she said that it took great self-control not to reply to his statement that he wanted someone younger in the cabinet: "Then why don't you start with yourself, Jim?"

European Parliament

Despite her Euroscepticism , she was elected to the European Parliament . 1979–1984 she represented Greater Manchester North and 1984–1989 Greater Manchester West. In her own words, her greatest contribution was to take a stand in the Agriculture Committee against the subsidy policy of the EC and to denounce the scandals and losses of billions as a result.

Honors

• Order of the Companions of OR Tambo in silver
• Honorary doctorate from the Open University (posthumously, June 2003)
• Federal Cross of Merit (January 9, 1990)

Life peer

In 1974 her husband, Edward Castle , joined the House of Lords as a life peer titled Baron Castle , of Islington in Greater London. Hence his wife would formally be Lady Castle, but she declined that courtesy title . Ted Castle died in 1979. In 1990 she became a Life Peeress in her own right with the title Baroness Castle of Blackburn , of Ibstone in the County of Buckinghamshire. She remained in politics until her death and attacked the then Chancellor of the Exchequer , Gordon Brown , at the Labor Party conference in 2001 for refusing to link pensions to income.

death

Castle died in Ibstone, Chiltern , Buckinghamshire of pneumonia caused by chronic lung disease.

Web links

• Barbara Castle - Blackburn Labor Party
• Photos of Barbara Castle - Blackburn Labor Party
• Entry of Barbara Castle in the European Parliament 's database of deputies
• Newspaper article about Barbara Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Died: Barbara Castle . In: Der Spiegel . No. 20 , 2002 ( online ).
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Ernst Probst: Barbara Castle: The “fiery red” of the “Labor Party.” ( Memento of the original from December 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. CD-ROM Superwomen: 14 books on one CD-ROM. 
3. ^ Anne Perkins: Obituary: Baroness Castle of Blackburn , The Guardian. May 4, 2002. Retrieved September 17, 2007. 
4. ↑ Barbara Castle . Lasting tribute. Retrieved March 9, 2013.
5. ↑ Women in the House of Commons House of Commons Information Office Factsheet M4 Appendix C (PDF; 423 kB) Accessed December 30, 2010.
6. ↑ Hazel Blears' memories of Barbara Castle ( Memento of 19 March 2008 at the Internet Archive ) in June, The Labor History Group, 20th of 2007.
7. ↑ TUC | History online
8. ↑ Julia Tugendhat: Barbara Castle, Die fierige Rote: Eighty years and not tired at all - the British Labor politician "seduced" her party to Europe . In: Die Zeit , No. 4/1992, p. 67.
9. ^ The Order of the Companions of OR Tambo in Silver - Profile of Barbara Castle . The Presidency - Republic of South Africa. Archived from the original on July 19, 2010. Retrieved June 24, 2009.
10. ↑ Information from the Office of the Federal President
11. ↑ Women MPs Elected 1940s . In: Center for Advancement of Women in Politics . Queen's University. Retrieved June 24, 2009.
12. ↑ Ted Castle . Spartacus Educational. December 16, 1979. Retrieved June 24, 2009.
13. ^ Deaths England and Wales 1984-2006 . Findmypast.com. Archived from the original on February 28, 2009. Retrieved June 24, 2009.