biography
| name: |
Castle (of Blackburn), Barbara (Anne) Castle, Baroness
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née Betts
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| sex:
| female
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| lived:
| (1911–2002)
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| biography:
| British stateswoman, born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, N England, UK. She studied at Oxford, in 1944 married a journalist, Edward Cyril Castle, later Baron Castle (1907–79), and became Labour MP for Blackburn in 1945. She was chairman of the Labour Party (1958–9), minister of overseas development (1964–5), and a controversial minister of transport (1965–8), introducing a 70 mph speed limit, and the ‘breathalyser’ test for drunken drivers. She became secretary of state for employment and productivity (1968–70) and for social services (1974–6). She then returned to the back benches, but was later elected to the European Parliament, where she became vice-chair of the Socialist group (1979–86). She became a life peer in 1990. Her writing includes The Castle Diaries (1980, 1984), Sylvia and Christabel Pankhurst (1987), and a volume of autobiography, Fighting All the Way (1993). |
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