Barbara Castle

Barbara Castle (1910-2002), the British Labour Party's most prominent and successful female politician, holding major Cabinet offices and successfully promoting measures of equality for women.

Barbara Anne Betts, the second daughter and third child of Frank and Annie Rebecca Betts, was born on October 6, 1910, in Chesterfield. Her father worked for the Inland Revenue. Both her parents were socialists. Educated at Pontefract and District Girls' High School, Bradford Girls' Grammar School, and St Hugh's College, Oxford, she worked in sales jobs in Manchester and London before beginning poorly paid work in journalism. She was elected to the National Council of the Socialist League and as a Labour councillor on St Pancras Borough Council, London, in 1937. From March 1941 she worked in the Fish Division of the Ministry of Food, but made her name in national politics with a speech on the Beveridge Report (see William Beveridge) at the 1943 Labour Party Conference. In July 1944 (the same month that she married Ted Castle, a journalist) she was selected as a Labour candidate for Blackburn, a seat she went on to win in the 1945 general election that saw the government of Clement Attlee come to power. She represented the town until her retirement from the House of Commons in 1979.

From the outset of her parliamentary career Castle was recognized as a left-wing rebel, becoming a prominent member of the Keep Left Group. She was parliamentary private secretary to Stafford Cripps until he went to the Treasury and then acted for Harold Wilson, resulting in a friendship of 40 years. Castle was elected a member of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee (NEC) from 1950 until 1979, serving as chairman from 1958 to 1959. She was a leading Bevanite (that is, an ally of the party’s leading left-winger, Aneurin Bevan) in the Labour Party's internal battles of the 1950s.

With Labour in office under Harold Wilson, Castle entered the Cabinet as minister of overseas development (1964- 1965) before becoming minister of transport (1965- 1968). Although a non-driver, she flourished as a high-profile minister, introducing such safety measures as seat belts and the Breathalyzer tests for drivers suspected of excessive alcoholic drinking (see Road Safety) as well as achieving the introduction of freightliner terminals. She was promoted into an even more controversial post, first secretary of state and secretary of state for employment and productivity (1968-1970). In this role, she was responsible for the carrying of the Prices and Incomes Act, 1968, and the attempt to legislate good industrial relations with the proposals published as In Place of Strife in late 1968, which outraged trade unionists and the left wing of the Labour Party, nearly ripping it apart. She also was responsible for one of the government's major successes, the Equal Pay Act, 1970 (see Equal Pay).

In Harold Wilson's 1974-1976 government Castle was secretary of state for social services. She was responsible for substantial social security and disability legislation as well as defending the National Health Service from financial cuts and securing a substantial pay rise for nurses. She was offered no post by Wilson's successor in the premiership, James Callaghan, and did not stand for the House of Commons in the 1979 general election. In 1979 Castle successfully stood for Greater Manchester North in the first direct elections to the European Parliament, in spite of having been a notable opponent of British entry into the Common Market (see European Union) and was leader of the British Labour Group (1979-1985). Re-elected in 1984 for Greater Manchester West, she retired in 1989 and was created Baroness Castle of Blackburn in 1990. She continued to fight for pensioners and other causes until near her death.

Castle was the Labour Party's outstanding female politician of the 20th century. Before her move to the Department of Employment in 1968 she appeared to be a possible future prime minister. She was vivacious, intelligent, politically committed, and an able speaker. A practical feminist, she was determined and capable in securing equal opportunities legislation. Above all, she was a fiery and dedicated fighter for her political causes. Castle died on May 3, 2002.