Audrey Wise

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Audrey Wise
Member of Parliament
for Preston
In office
11 June 1987 – 2 September 2000
Preceded byStan Thorne
Succeeded byMark Hendrick
Member of Parliament
for Coventry South West
In office
28 February 1974 – 7 April 1979
Preceded byConstituency created
Succeeded byJohn Butcher
Personal details
Born
Audrey Brown

(1932-01-04)4 January 1932
Newcastle upon Tyne, England
Died2 September 2000(2000-09-02) (aged 68)
Stafford, England
Political partyLabour
Spouse
John Wise
(m. 1953)
Children2 (including Valerie)

Audrey Wise (

Coventry South West from 1974 to 1979, and for Preston
from 1987 until her death.

Early life

Audrey Wise was born Audrey Brown in Newcastle upon Tyne, the daughter of a former Labour councillor. She married her husband John, a dispensing optician, in 1953, and they two children: Valerie, who is also a political activist, and a son, Ian.[1]

Political career

At the age of 21 she became a

Coventry South West from February 1974 to 1979, a period of tenuous Labour Government with marginal or no majorities. Despite Labour being in power, "at Westminster in the 1970s she was regarded as something of a left-wing nuisance, a state of affairs that she viewed as necessary and desirable."[3]
During the 1970s she was a leading member of the Institute for Workers' Control.[4]

She visited Portugal in 1974 to report on and participate in the Carnation Revolution that overthrew the fascist dictatorship, recording her experiences and analysis in Eyewitness in Revolutionary Portugal.[5] She was famously arrested on the picket line during the Grunwick dispute where Asian women workers were striking for union recognition.[6]

With

budget which sought to freeze many annual fiscal changes to mitigate global inflation; this amendment introduced retrospective inflation-proofing on personal tax allowances (the tax-free portion of individuals' earnings), and resulted in £450 million being returned to taxpayers.[3]

Losing her seat in the

USDAW between 1991 and 1997.[4]

As a member of the health select committee, she persuaded the committee to hold an inquiry into maternity services. The report,[7] endorsed by the Conservative government, called for services to become more woman-centred, and recommended increased access to home births and water births.[citation needed]

The conflict between Wise and the Labour Whips was highlighted in the National Theatre play This House by James Graham in 2012.[citation needed]

Death

On 2 September 2000, Wise died at her home in Stafford from a brain tumour, which had been diagnosed some five months earlier.[1] Her family described her death as "one fight she did not win".[8]

Notes

  1. ^ Wise gave her age as thirty-nine when nominated for the Coventry parliamentary seat, though she had just turned forty-two when she was elected in February 1974. Her date of birth was routinely reported as 1935 after this date, which often caused her "enormous difficulty" when asked in later years.[1][2]

References

  1. ^ required.)
  2. ^ Chris Mullin in A View from the Foothills: The Diaries of Chris Mullin (Profile Books, 2009, p127)
  3. ^ a b c Langdon, Julia; Wainwright, Hilary (5 September 2000). "Obituary: Audrey Wise". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 March 2013.
  4. ^ a b Macfarlane, Alison. "Obituary: Audrey Wise". Radstats Journal (75). Retrieved 17 January 2009.
  5. .
  6. ^ "Obituary: Audrey Wise". The Daily Telegraph. 5 September 2000. Retrieved 28 March 2013.
  7. ^ House of Commons Health Committee (1992) Second Report on the Maternity Services (Winterton report). HMSO: London
  8. ^ Langdon, Julia (5 September 2000). "Obituary: Audrey Wise". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 October 2018.

External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
New constituency
Coventry South West
February 19741979
Succeeded by
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Preston
19872000
Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by
Sydney Tierney
President of
USDAW

1991–1997
Succeeded by