Hall of Fame

6 October 1910 in Chesterfield

3 April 2002

Labour's Red Queen - one of the most important female politicians in the history of the Labour party

'We want jam today, not jam tomorrow' (criticising the Labour leadership in 1943 for the delay in implementing the Beveridge Report)

Labour

As Transport Secretary in the 1960s she introduced the 70mph speed limit and the breathalyser

Barbara Castle was born Barbara Betts, the youngest of 3 children. Her father was a tax inspector. The household was an educated, socialist one and Barbara was exposed to political debate at a young age. She started school a year early and attended Bradford Grammar school and then St Hugh's College Oxford. During the depression she sold fruit from a mobile stall but was determined to become a politician.

She met and fell in love with William Mellor who was twice her age, and married. When he died in 1942, she went to his funeral, but his wife didn't!

She was elected MP for Blackburn in 1945 and served as its MP for over 30 years. She was a staunch socialist, a fiery speaker and well-known for criticising the Establishment and the Labour Party especially when she thought women were not getting the best jobs. She was a minister in the Wilson governments of 1964-70. Some people blamed her for the loss of the 1970 election to Ted Heath - she had tried to cut down trade union powers and this did not go down well in the party. She was once again a minister when Wilson became Prime Minister again in the 1970s, but was swiftly sacked by Jim Callaghan, with whom she did not get on.

She was a Member of the European Parliament from 1979-89, the only British MEP at that time to have been a Cabinet minister. She was made a Life Peer in 1990, and died in 2002 aged 91. In 2008 she was named by The Guardian as one of four of 'Labour's greatest heroes', and a train was named after her.

• 1910 Born at Chesterfield.
• 1937 Elected a Labour member of St Pancras Borough Council.
• 1943 Speaks at the Labour annual conference for the first time.
• 1944 Marries newspaper editor Ted Castle.
• 1945 Elected MP for Blackburn.
• 1964-1970 Holds 3 different Cabinet posts.
• 1970 Labour defeat in general election, Ted Heath becomes Prime Minister.
• 1974 Labour election victory.
• 1974-76 Secretary of State for Social Services.
• 1976 Castle is sacked as a Cabinet minister by PM Jim Callaghan.
• 1979 Retires from Westminster, publishes her memoirs of years in office in the 1960s and 1970s, the Castle Diaries.
• 1979-89 Represents Greater Manchester as its MEP.
• 1990 Made a Life Peer.
• 2001 Speaks at the Labour annual conference criticising the Chancellor Gordon Brown for refusing to link pensions to earnings, to rapturous applause.
• 2002 Dies at Chiltern, Buckinghamshire.