Minister of State for Home Affairs
What was the position of Shirley Williams from Oct 1969 to Jun 1970?
Shirley Williams Shirley Vivian Teresa Brittain Williams , Baroness Williams of Crosby , ( ; 27 July 1930 – 11 April 2021 ) was a British politician and academic . Originally a Labour Party Member of Parliament ( MP ) , she served in the Labour cabinet from 1974 to 1979 . She was one of the Gang of Four rebels who founded the Social Democratic Party ( SDP ) in 1981 and , at the time of her retirement from politics , was a Liberal Democrat . Williams was elected to the House of Commons for Hitchin in the 1964 general election . She served as Minister for Education and Science from 1967 to 1969 and Minister of State for Home Affairs from 1969 to 1970 . She served as Shadow Home Secretary from 1971 and 1973 . In 1974 , she became Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection in Harold Wilsons cabinet . When Wilson was succeeded by James Callaghan , she served as Secretary of State for Education and Science and Paymaster General from 1976 to 1979 . She lost her seat to the Conservative Party at the 1979 general election . In 1981 , dismayed with the Labour Partys left-ward movement under Michael Foot , she was one of the Gang of Four—centrist Labour figures who formed the SDP . Williams won the 1981 Crosby by-election and became the first SDP member elected to Parliament , but she lost the seat in the 1983 general election . She served as President of the SDP from 1982 to 1987 and supported the SDPs merger with the Liberal Party that formed the Liberal Democrats . Between 2001 and 2004 , she served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords and , from 2007 to 2010 , as Adviser on Nuclear Proliferation to Prime Minister Gordon Brown . She remained an active member of the House of Lords until announcing her retirement in January 2016 , and was a Professor Emerita of Electoral Politics at the John F . Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University at the time of her death at age 90 . Early life and education . Born in Chelsea , London , Williams was the daughter of the political scientist and philosopher Sir George Catlin and the feminist and pacifist writer Vera Brittain . She was educated at various schools , including Mrs Spencers School in Brechin Place , South Kensington ; Christchurch Elementary School in Chelsea ; Talbot Heath School in Bournemouth ; and St Pauls Girls School in London . During the Second World War , she was evacuated to Minnesota in the United States for three years . While living in the US , she took a screen test to play Velvet Brown in the 1944 film National Velvet ; the role was eventually taken by Elizabeth Taylor . On the sea voyage returning to Britain she narrowly avoided being gang-raped by a group of sailors . While she was an undergraduate and Open Scholar at Somerville College , Oxford , Williams was a member of the Oxford University Dramatic Society ( OUDS ) and toured the United States playing the role of Cordelia in an OUDS production of Shakespeares King Lear directed by a young Tony Richardson . In 1950 , she became the first woman to chair the Oxford University Labour Club . After graduating as a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy , politics and economics , Williams was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and studied American trade unionism at Columbia University in New York City for a masters degree , awarded by Oxford in 1954 . On returning to Britain , she began her career as a journalist , working firstly for the Daily Mirror and then for the Financial Times . In 1960 , she became General Secretary of the Fabian Society , a role she held until 1964 . Parliamentary career . After unsuccessfully contesting the constituency of Harwich at the 1954 by-election and the general election the following year , as well as the constituency of Southampton Test at the 1959 general election , Williams was elected in the 1964 general election as Labour MP for the constituency of Hitchin in Hertfordshire . She retained the seat , renamed Hertford and Stevenage after boundary changes in 1974 , until 1979 . As Minister for Education and Science ( August 1967 – October 1969 ) , Williams launched the first Women in Engineering Year in 1969 . Between 1971 and 1973 , she served as Shadow Home Secretary . In 1974 , she became Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection in Harold Wilsons cabinet . When Wilson announced his resignation in 1976 and was succeeded by James Callaghan , she became Secretary of State for Education and Paymaster General , holding both cabinet positions at the same time . Williams stood for the Labour deputy leadership in October of that year but lost to Michael Foot . Comprehensive schools . While serving as education secretary between 1976 and 1979 , Williams pursued the policy introduced by Anthony Crosland in 1965 to introduce the comprehensive school system in place of grammar schools . Previously , in 1972 , as her daughter Rebecca approached secondary school age , Williams had moved into the catchment area of the voluntary aided school Godolphin and Latymer School allowing her daughter to gain a place there . However , when Godolphin and Latymer School subsequently voted to go independent in 1977 , Rebecca chose to leave that school and instead went to Camden School for Girls because it had chosen to go comprehensive . Europeanism . Always a passionately committed supporter of European integration , Williams was one of 68 Labour MPs to defy a three-line whip in the 28 October 1971 Commons vote on membership of the European Communities . Four years later , she was one of the leaders of the Britain in Europe campaign during the 1975 European Communities membership referendum . Labours anti-Europeanism during the Michael Foot years was one of the factors that drove her to abandon the party in 1981 . In her 2016 valedictory speech to the House of Lords before that years second membership referendum , she described the UKs European Union ( EU ) membership as the most central political question that this country has to answer and said it was the reason for her retirement . In closing , she called on her colleagues to think very hard before allowing the United Kingdom to withdraw from .. . its major duty to the world—the one it will encounter , and then deliver , through the European Union . Social Democratic Party . Williams lost her seat ( renamed Hertford and Stevenage ) when the Labour Party was defeated at the 1979 general election . Her defeat came two years after her appearance and arrest on the Grunwick picket lines , for which she had been harshly criticised in the press . When , soon afterward , she was interviewed by Robin Day for the BBCs Decision 79 television coverage of the election results , both Norman St John-Stevas – the Conservatives Education Spokesman who had frequently clashed with her at the despatch box – and Merlyn Rees , the outgoing Home Secretary , paid tribute to her . Following the election , she hosted the BBC1 TV series Shirley Williams in Conversation , interviewing , in turn , a number of political figures , including former West German chancellor Willy Brandt , former Conservative prime minister Edward Heath and her recently deposed colleague James Callaghan . She later appeared on many television and radio discussion programmes in Britain – in particular , the BBCs Question Time , where her 58 appearances earned her a Most Frequent Panellist award . During this period , Williams remained a member of the National Executive of the Labour Party . From 1980 to 1981 , she was Chairman of the Fabian Society . In 1981 , unhappy with the influence of the more left-wing members of the Labour Party , she resigned her membership to form – along with fellow Labour resignees Roy Jenkins , David Owen and Bill Rodgers – the Social Democratic Party ( SDP ) . They were joined by 28 other Labour MPs and one Conservative . Later that year , following the death of the Conservative MP Sir Graham Page , she won the Crosby by-election and became the first SDP member elected to Parliament . Two years later , however , having become the SDPs President , she lost the seat at the 1983 general election . At the 1987 general election , Williams stood for the SDP in Cambridge , but lost to the sitting Conservative candidate Robert Rhodes James . She then supported the SDPs merger with the Liberal Party that formed the Liberal Democrats . Harvard University . In 1988 , Williams moved to the United States to serve as a professor at Harvards Kennedy School of Government , remaining until 2001 , and thereafter as Public Service Professor of Electoral Politics , Emerita . Nonetheless , she remained active in politics and public service in Britain , the United States and internationally . During these years , Williams helped draft constitutions in Russia , Ukraine , and South Africa . She also served as director of Harvards Project Liberty , an initiative designed to assist the emerging democracies in Central and Eastern Europe ; and as a board member and acting director of Harvards Institute of Politics ( IOP ) . Upon her elevation to the House of Lords in 1993 , she returned to the United Kingdom . Life peer . Williams was created a life peer on 1 February 1993 as Baroness Williams of Crosby , of Stevenage in the County of Hertfordshire , and subsequently served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords from 2001 to 2004 . Among other non-profit boards , Williams was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations , the EUs Comité des Sages ( Reflection Group ) on Social Policy , the Twentieth Century Fund , the Ditchley Foundation , the Institute for Public Policy Research , and the Nuclear Threat Initiative . She also served as President of the Royal Institute of International Affairs , as Commissioner of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament and as President of the Cambridge University Liberal Association . Williams was also an attendee of the 2013 and the 2010 Bilderberg conferences in Watford , Hertfordshire , England , and Sitges , Spain , respectively . In June 2007 , after Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair as Prime Minister , Williams accepted a formal Government position as Advisor on Nuclear Proliferation provided she could serve as an independent advisor ; she remained a Liberal Democrat . Her interest and commitment to education continued , and she served as Chair of Judges of the British Teaching Awards . Williams was a member of the Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-proliferation , established in October 2009 . Williams was originally opposed to the Cameron–Clegg coalitions Health and Social Care Bill , describing it as stealth privatisation during 2011 . The government made some changes to the Bill , described by Williams as major concessions , but dismissed as minor by Guardian commentator Polly Toynbee . Williams urged Liberal Democrats to support the amended Bill during the conference in March 2012 , saying I would not have stuck with the bill , if I believed for one moment it would undermine the NHS . Williams spoke against gay marriage in the House of Lords , saying that equality is not the same as sameness . That is the fundamental mistake in this Bill and that women and men complement one another , arguing that marriage between people of the same sex should not be called marriage but should have different nomenclature . In late 2015 , she announced her intention to retire from the House of Lords . On 28 January 2016 she made her valedictory speech in the chamber , and on 11 February she officially retired , in pursuance of Section 1 of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 . In the 2017 New Year Honours , Williams was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to political and public life . Personal life . Williams married twice . At Oxford she met Peter Parker ( the future head of British Rail ) and they had a relationship . In her autobiography ( Climbing the Bookshelves ) Williams said that ...by the spring of 1949 I was in love with him , and he , a little , with me... . In 1955 , she married the moral philosopher Bernard Williams . Bernard left Oxford to accommodate his wifes rising political ambitions , finding a post first at University College London ( 1959–64 ) and then as Professor of Philosophy at Bedford College , London ( 1964–67 ) , while she worked as a journalist for the Financial Times and as Secretary of the Fabian Society . The marriage was dissolved in 1974 ; Bernard Williams subsequently married Patricia Skinner and had two sons with her . Shirley said of her marriage to Bernard : .. . [ T ] here was something of a strain that comes from two things . One is that we were both too caught up in what we were respectively doing — we didnt spend all that much time together ; the other , to be completely honest , is that Im fairly unjudgmental and I found Bernards capacity for pretty sharp putting-down of people he thought were stupid unacceptable . Patricia has been cleverer than me in that respect . She just rides it . He can be very painful sometimes . He can eviscerate somebody . Those who are left behind are , as it were , dead personalities . Judge not that ye be not judged . I was influenced by Christian thinking , and he would say Thats frightfully pompous and its not really the point . So we had a certain jarring over that and over Catholicism . Following the annulment of her first marriage in 1980 , she married the Harvard professor and presidential historian Richard Neustadt in 1987 . Neustadt died in 2003 . She had a daughter , Rebecca , with Bernard Williams , a stepdaughter , and two grandchildren Williams was a Roman Catholic , and from 2009 had attended church every Sunday . In Whos Who , she listed her recreations as music , poetry , hill walking . Williams died on 11 April 2021 , at the age of 90 . Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey called Williams a Liberal lion and a true trailblazer . Honours . Williams was made an Honorary Fellow of her alma mater , Somerville College , Oxford , in 1970 , and of Newnham College , Cambridge , in 1977 . Williams received a number of honorary doctorates : - Honorary DEd ( Doctor of Education ) , Council for National Academic Awards , 1969 - Honorary DLitt ( Doctor of Letters ) , Heriot-Watt University,1980 - Hon . LLD ( Doctor of Laws ) , University of Sheffield , 1980 ; University of Southampton , 1981 ; University of Liverpool , 2008 ; University of Cambridge , 2009 - Honorary Doctor of Politics and Economics , University of Leuven , 1976 ; Radcliffe College , Harvard , 1978 ; University of Leeds , 1980 ; University of Bath , 1980 - Honorary DSc ( Doctor of Science ) , Aston University , 1981 - Honorary Doctor , Monterey Institute , California , 2006 Works by and about . Shirley Williams wrote several books , including : - Climbing the Bookshelves : The Autobiography of Shirley Williams , Virago Press ( 2009 ) . . - God and Caesar : Personal Reflections on Politics and Religion , University of Notre Dame Press ( 2003 ) . . - Ambition and Beyond : Career Paths of American Politicians , with Edward L . Lascher Jr , Institute of Governmental Studies Press , University of California , Berkeley ( 1993 ) . . - New Party – The New Technology Social and Liberal Democrats by Hebden Royd , ( 1988 ) . . - Politics is for People Harvard University Press , ( 1981 ) . . For details of Williamss early life see : - Vera Brittain : A Life by Paul Berry and Mark Bostridge ( 1995 ) . - Testament of Experience by Vera Brittain ( 1957 ) . There is a substantial article on Shirley Williams by Phillip Whitehead in the Dictionary of Labour Biography , edited by Greg Rosen , Politicos Publishing , 2001 , and one by Dick Newby in the Dictionary of Liberal Biography , edited by Duncan Brack , Politicos Publishing , 1998 . See also : External links . - Baroness Williams of Crosby at the Liberal Democrats - Faculty profile at the Harvard Kennedy School - The NS Interview : Shirley Williams ( New Statesman , 12 May 2010 )