1.
Order of the British Empire
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There is also the related British Empire Medal, whose recipients are affiliated with, but not members of, the order. Recommendations for appointments to the Order of the British Empire were at first made on the nomination of the United Kingdom, the self-governing Dominions of the Empire, nominations continue today from Commonwealth countries that participate in recommending British honours. Most members are citizens of the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth realms that use the Imperial system of honours and awards. Honorary knighthoods are appointed to citizens of nations where the Queen is not head of state, occasionally, honorary appointees are, incorrectly, referred to as Sir or Dame – Bill Gates or Bob Geldof, for example. In particular, King George V wished to create an Order to honour many thousands of those who had served in a variety of non-combatant roles during the First World War, when first established, the Order had only one division. However, in 1918, soon after its foundation, it was divided into Military. The Orders motto is For God and the Empire, at the foundation of the Order, the Medal of the Order of the British Empire was instituted, to serve as a lower award granting recipients affiliation but not membership. In 1922, this was renamed the British Empire Medal, in addition, the BEM is awarded by the Cook Islands and by some other Commonwealth nations. The British monarch is Sovereign of the Order, and appoints all members of the Order. The next most senior member is the Grand Master, of whom there have been three, Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales, Queen Mary, and the current Grand Master, the Duke of Edinburgh. The Order is limited to 300 Knights and Dames Grand Cross,845 Knights and Dames Commander, and 8,960 Commanders. There are no limits applied to the number of members of the fourth and fifth classes. Foreign recipients, as members, do not contribute to the numbers restricted to the Order as full members do. Though men can be knighted separately from an order of chivalry, women cannot, and so the rank of Knight/Dame Commander of the Order is the lowest rank of damehood, and second-lowest of knighthood. Because of this, Dame Commander is awarded in circumstances in which a man would be created a Knight Bachelor, for example, by convention, female judges of the High Court of Justice are created Dames Commander after appointment, while male judges become Knights Bachelor. The Order has six officials, the Prelate, the Dean, the Secretary, the Registrar, the King of Arms, the Bishop of London, a senior bishop in the Church of England, serves as the Orders Prelate. The Dean of St Pauls is ex officio the Dean of the Order, the Orders King of Arms is not a member of the College of Arms, as are many other heraldic officers. From time to time, individuals are appointed to a higher grade within the Order, thereby ceasing usage of the junior post-nominal letters
2.
Emma Albani
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Dame Emma Albani, DBE was a leading opera soprano of the 19th century and early 20th century, and the first Canadian singer to become an international star. Her repertoire focused on the operas of Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini and she performed across Europe and North America. Albani was born Marie-Louise-Emma-Cécile Lajeunesse in Chambly, Quebec, to the professional musician Joseph Lajeunesse and his wife, Mélina Mignault. Her date of birth is given as 1 November 1847, but other authors have placed her birth in 1848 or 1850. She began her studies with her mother, and at age five her father took over her musical lessons. Her father was a proficient musician who was skilled with the violin, harp, piano and he kept her on a strong practice regimen, with as much as four hours a day of lessons on the harp and piano. The family moved to Plattsburgh, New York, in 1852, in 1856 after the death of her mother, she continued her education in a Montreal convent-school, run by the Dames du Sacré-Coeur where her father had obtained the position of Music Master. This afforded her an education than she might otherwise receive. On 24 August 1860 she and Adelina Patti were soloists in the premiere of Charles Wugk Sabatiers Cantata in Montreal which was performed in honour of the visit of the Prince of Wales. However, she was unable to finance a musical education in Quebec, where singing and acting were considered unsavoury careers for a woman. There she became a singer, an organist and teacher of singing. In 1868, she travelled to Paris, where she studied with Gilbert Duprez at the Conservatoire de Paris and she spent six months in Paris, training with Duprez. She then travelled to Italy, where she studied Italian opera singing with Francesco Lamperti, under the guidance of her elocution instructor, Signor Delorenzi, she changed her name to the simpler Emma Albani, which sounded more European. She made her debut at Messina using the surname Albani and her funds began to run low, and although her training was not yet complete she began to look for work to help support her schooling. She found a position in Messina, and her debut was on 30 March 1870, in Messina. Her debut performance was well received. They had painted it red, and the little bird rose. She returned to Milan after her contract in Messina had expired, additional work offers began to pour in
3.
Julie Andrews
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Dame Julia Elizabeth Julie Andrews, DBE is an English actress, singer, author, theatre director and dancer. Andrews, an actress and singer, appeared on the West End in 1948. She rose to prominence starring in Broadway musicals such as My Fair Lady, playing Eliza Doolittle, in 1957, Andrews starred in the premiere of Rodgers and Hammersteins written-for-television musical Cinderella, a live network broadcast seen by over 100 million viewers. Andrews made her film debut in Mary Poppins, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the title role. She starred in The Sound of Music, playing Maria, between 1964 and 1986, she starred in The Americanization of Emily, Hawaii, Torn Curtain, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Star. The Tamarind Seed,10, Victor/Victoria, Thats Life. in 2000, Andrews was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the performing arts. In 2002, she was ranked #59 in the BBCs poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, in 2003, she revisited her first Broadway success, this time as a stage director, with a revival of The Boy Friend. From 2001 to 2004, Andrews starred in The Princess Diaries, The Princess Diaries 2, from 2004 to 2010, she lent her voice to the Shrek animated films, and Despicable Me. She is an author of books and has published her autobiography, Home. Julia Elizabeth Wells was born on 1 October 1935 in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey and her mother, Barbara Ward Wells was born in Chertsey and married Edward Charles Ted Wells, a teacher of metalwork and woodwork in 1932. However, Andrews was conceived as a result of an affair her mother had with a family friend. Andrews discovered her true parentage from her mother in 1950, although it was not publicly disclosed until her 2008 autobiography, with the outbreak of World War II, Barbara and Ted Wells went their separate ways and were soon divorced. Ted Wells assisted with evacuating children to Surrey during the Blitz, Andrews lived briefly with Ted Wells and her brother John in Surrey. In 1940, Ted Wells sent young Julia to live with her mother and stepfather, who, the Andrews family was very poor and we lived in a bad slum area of London, Andrews recalled, adding, That was a very black period in my life. According to Andrews, her stepfather was violent and an alcoholic, Ted Andrews twice, while drunk, tried to get into bed with his stepdaughter, resulting in Andrews fitting a lock on her door. The Andrews family took up residence at the Old Meuse, in West Grove, Hersham and she had an enormous influence on me, Andrews said of Stiles-Allen, adding, She was my third mother – Ive got more mothers and fathers than anyone in the world. In her memoir Julie Andrews – My Star Pupil, Stiles-Allen records, The range, accuracy and she had possessed the rare gift of absolute pitch. According to Andrews, Madame was sure that I could do Mozart and Rossini, of her own voice, she says I had a very pure, white, thin voice, a four-octave range – dogs would come for miles around
4.
Peggy Ashcroft
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Dame Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft, DBE, commonly known as Peggy Ashcroft, was an English actress whose career spanned more than sixty years. Born to a comfortable middle-class family, Ashcroft was determined from an age to become an actress. She was working in theatres even before graduating from drama school. Ashcroft maintained her leading place in British theatre for the fifty years. Well regarded in Shakespeare, Ashcroft was also known for her commitment to modern drama, appearing in plays by Bertolt Brecht, Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter. Ashcroft was born in Croydon, Surrey, the child and only daughter of William Worsley Ashcroft, a land agent. The biographer Michael Billington writes that Violetta Ashcroft was of Danish and German-Jewish descent, Ashcrofts father was killed on active service in the First World War. Ashcroft was determined, however, and at the age of sixteen, she enrolled at the Central School of Speech and Drama, run by Elsie Fogerty, from whom her mother had taken lessons some years before. The schools emphasis was on the voice and elegant diction, which did not appeal to Ashcroft or to her fellow pupil Laurence Olivier and she learned more from reading My Life in Art by Constantin Stanislavski, the influential director of the Moscow Art Theatre. She graduated from the Central School in 1927 with London Universitys Diploma in Dramatic Art, never much drawn to the West End or stardom, she learned her craft with mostly small companies in fringe theatres. Her first notable West End role was Naemi in Jew Süss in 1929, in the same year she married Rupert Hart-Davis, then an aspiring actor, later a well-known publisher. He later described the marriage as a sad failure, we were too young to know what we wanted. After much agony we parted and were duly divorced, nowadays Peggy and I lunch together perhaps once or twice a year in a Soho restaurant and have a lovely nostalgic-romantic talk of shared memories of long ago. She is a person and the best actress living. In 1930 Ashcroft was cast as Desdemona in a production of Othello at the Savoy Theatre, the production was not well received, but Ashcrofts notices were excellent. During the run she had an affair with Robeson, which. Priestley, put an end to her first marriage, Hart-Davis was granted a divorce in 1933, on the grounds of Ashcrofts adultery with the director Theodore Komisarjevsky. Among those impressed by Ashcrofts performance as Desdemona was John Gielgud and he recalled, When Peggy came on in the Senate scene it was as if all the lights in the theatre had suddenly gone up
5.
Henrietta Barnett
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Dame Henrietta Octavia Weston Barnett, DBE was a notable English social reformer, educationist, and author. She and her husband, Samuel Augustus Barnett, founded the first University Settlement at Toynbee Hall in 1884 and they also worked to establish the model Hampstead Garden Suburb in the early 20th century. Born in Clapham, London, Henrietta Octavia Weston Rowland lost her mother at an early age, at age 16, Henrietta was sent to a boarding school in Devon run by the Haddon sisters, who, influenced by James Hinton, were committed to social altruism. When her father died in 1869, Henrietta moved with two sisters to Bayswater, where she met and helped social activist and housing reformer Octavia Hill. Hill introduced Henrietta to the writings of John Ruskin, as well as influential people similarly interested in improving the condition of Londons poor. Through Hill, Henrietta met Canon Samuel Barnett, then the curate of St Marys, the newlyweds soon moved to the impoverished Whitechapel parish of St Judes, intent on improving social conditions. Henrietta continued her parish visiting activities, with a focus on women and children, in 1875, Henrietta became a woman guardian for the parish, and the following year was named a school manager for the Poor Law district schools in Forest Gate. The Barnetts experiment in sending slum children for country holidays grew into the Childrens Fresh Air Mission, established in 1877, Henrietta Barnett promoted Homes for Workhouse Girls starting in 1880, and founded the London Pupil Teachers Association in 1891. She also served as vice-president of the National Association for the Welfare of the Feeble-Minded, in 1897 annual loan exhibitions of fine art began at the nearby Whitechapel Gallery through the Barnetts efforts. In 1903 Richard Tawney began working with them, the Childrens Country Holiday Fund, william Beveridge and Clement Attlee also worked with the Barnetts as they started their own careers. A visit to Toynbee Hall inspired Jane Addams to found Hull House in Chicago, in 1889 the activist couple acquired a weekend home at Spaniards End in the Hampstead area of north-west London. The Barnetts became inspired by Ebenezer Howard and the housing development movement. In 1904, they established trusts which bought 243 acres of land along the newly opened Northern line extension to Golders Green, in 1909, an adult education institute opened in the middle of the new Hampstead Garden Suburb, with cultural programmes and discussion groups. Soon a school for girls was established and named the Henrietta Barnett School, the Barnetts never had children of their own. They adopted Dorothy Woods, and Henrietta also served as guardian for her brain-damaged elder sister. After Samuel died in 1913, Henrietta founded Barnett House at Oxford in his memory and she helped it become the universitys centre for social work and social policy education. Barnett wrote several books, alone and with her husband and their Christian Socialist beliefs are set out in Practicable Socialism and Toward Social Reform. Her early books concerned domestic issues, The Making of the Home, How to Mind the Baby, with Kathleen Mallam, Henrietta Barnett also edited a collection of essays entitled Destitute, Neglected, and Delinquent Children
6.
Shirley Bassey
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In January 1959, Bassey became the first Welsh person to gain a No.1 single. In 2000, Bassey was made a Dame for services to the performing arts, in 1977 she received the Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist in the previous 25 years. Bassey has been called one of the most popular vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century. Shirley Veronica Bassey was the sixth and youngest child of Henry Bassey and Eliza Jane Start and she grew up in the adjacent community of Splott. At the time, Tiger Bay was one of the largest ports in the world and was very multi-ethnic and her father was Nigerian, and her mother was English, from Teesside. Two of her mothers four children from previous relationships lived in the Bassey household, Eliza and Henrys second child died in infancy, so Shirley was born into a household of three sisters, two half-sisters, and one brother. Teachers and students alike at Moorland Road School noticed Basseys strong voice, even in the school choir the teacher kept telling me to back off till I was singing in the corridor. A classmate recalled her singing the refrain Cant help lovin that man of mine from Show Boat with such feeling that she made their teacher uncomfortable. After leaving Splott Secondary Modern School at age 14, Bassey found employment at a factory while singing in public houses and clubs in the evenings and on weekends. In 1953, Bassey signed her first professional contract, to sing in the variety show Memories of Jolson. She next took up an engagement in Hot from Harlem. Pregnant at 16 with her first child and unwilling to reveal the name of the childs father, in 1955, Bassey toured various theatres until she was noticed by the impresario Jack Hylton. He invited her to feature in Al Reads Such Is Life at the Adelphi Theatre in Londons West End, during the shows run, Philips record producer Johnny Franz spotted her on television, was impressed, and offered her a recording deal. Bassey recorded her first single, Burn My Candle, released in February 1956, owing to the suggestive lyrics, the BBC banned it, but it sold well enough nonetheless, backed with her powerful rendition of Stormy Weather. More singles followed, and in February 1957, Bassey had her first hit with The Banana Boat Song and she then made her American stage début in Las Vegas at El Rancho Vegas. In mid-1958, she recorded two singles that would become classics in the Bassey catalogue. As I Love You was released as the B-side of another ballad, Hands Across the Sea, it did not sell well at first, but after an appearance at the London Palladium sales began to pick up. In January 1959, As I Love You reached No.1 and stayed there for four weeks, it was the first No.1 single by a Welsh artist
7.
Louisa Aldrich-Blake
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Dame Louisa Brandreth Aldrich-Blake, DBE was one of the first British women to enter the world of medicine. Born in Chingford, Essex, the daughter of a rector and she graduated from the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine for Women in 1893. She went on to take the University of Londons higher degrees in Medicine and Surgery, throughout her career, Aldrich-Blake was associated with the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital, becoming senior surgeon in 1910. At the Royal Free Hospital, she was the first woman to hold the post of surgical registrar and she was the first to perform operations for cancers of the cervix and rectum. Aldrich-Blake was devoted to training students of the Royal Free Hospitals School of Medicine for Women and she became Dean of the School in 1914. In the 1925 New Years Honours List, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, Dame Louisa Aldrich-Blake died on 28 December 1925 from undisclosed causes. The Dame Louisa Brandreth Aldrich-Blake Collection is located in the Royal Free Hospitals Archives Centre, a statue of her is in Tavistock Square, London. Genesis Womens History archive index entry for Royal Free Hospital Collection, wellcome Library holdings of archive material. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Index
8.
Katharine Stewart-Murray, Duchess of Atholl
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Katharine Marjory Ramsay was born in Edinburgh on 6 November 1874, the daughter of Sir James Henry Ramsay, 10th Baronet. She was educated at Wimbledon High School and the Royal College of Music, during her school years she was known as Kitty Ramsay. On 20 July 1899, she married John Stewart-Murray, Marquess of Tullibardine, moreover, Baxter claims her victory in 1923 was not seen as a forgone conclusion. Prior to 1918, Atholl had been opposed to womens suffrage and she resigned the Conservative Whip first in 1935 over the India Bill and the national-socialist tendency of the governments domestic policy. Resuming the Whip, she resigned it again in 1937 over the Anglo-Italian Agreement, finally she resigned her parliamentary seat in 1938 in opposition to Neville Chamberlains policy of appeasement of Adolf Hitler. To permit her resignation, she took Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds on 28 November 1938 and she stood unsuccessfully in the subsequent by-election as an Independent candidate. She argued that she actively opposed totalitarian regimes and practices, in 1931, she published The Conscription of a People - a protest against the abuse of rights in the Soviet Union. In 1936, she was involved in a battle in the pages of various newspapers with Lady Houston after the latter had become notorious for her outspoken support of Benito Mussolini. Stewart-Murray had taken issue with Houston calling in the pages of the Saturday Review on the king to become British dictator in imitation of the European fascist regimes. Her book Searchlight on Spain resulted from the involvement, and her support for the Republican side in the led to her being nicknamed by some the Red Duchess. However, Cowling cites her as saying that she supported the Republican government because a government which used Moors could not be a national government and her opposition to the British policy of non-intervention in Spain epitomised her attitudes and actions. She campaigned against the Soviet control of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary as the chairman of the League for European Freedom in Britain from 1945, in 1958, she published a biography of her life with her husband entitled Working Partnership. She was also a vice-president of the Girls Public Day School Trust from 1924-1960 and she was also a keen composer, setting music to accompany the poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson. She was closely involved in her husbands regiment The Scottish Horse, as Dowager Duchess of Atholl she took over the appointment of Honorary Colonel of The Regiment of Scottish Horse from 1942, until she relinquished it in 1952. Her Grace, Katharine, Duchess of Atholl, died in Edinburgh, aged 85, British Library, Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections – correspondence and papers relating to Indian self-government, 1928-1935. Ref, MSS Eur 903 National Library of Scotland, Manuscripts Collections, correspondence and papers regarding the Scottish National War Memorial, 1919–1958, Ref, kings College London Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives. Institute of Education Archives, Girls Day School Trust collection Katherine,403, ISBN 0-521-20582-4 Stobaugh, Beverly Parkers, Women and Parliament, 1918-1970, Hicksville, NY, Exposition Press, c 1978. Exposition Press, ISBN 0-682-49056-3 Hetherington, Shelia, Katharine Atholl 1874-1960, Aberdeen University Press Knox, William, Chapter 8, Katherine, Duchess of Atholl, The Red Duchess
9.
Mary Bailey (aviator)
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Dame Mary Bailey, Lady Bailey, DBE, née Westenra, was a British aviator. In January 1930 she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, the daughter of aristocratic parents, Lady Mary Bailey spent most of her childhood in Ireland where she was home schooled until she ran away in 1906. Adventurous from an age, she apparently bought a motorbike in her youth and was gaining a reputation for speeding in car by 1914. During the first world war, Mary volunteered as a mechanic and served in Britain and France. She was awarded a licence in early 1927 and quickly started a sporting career. She became the first woman to fly across the Irish Sea, on 5 July 1927 she set a worlds height record of 17,283 ft in a light aircraft category, flying DH.60 Cirrus II Moth. The return journey involved flying across the Congo, then along the edge of the Sahara and up the west coast of Africa, then across Spain. It was the longest solo flight and longest flight accomplished by a woman that far, in 1927 and 1928 she twice won the Harmon Trophy as the worlds outstanding aviatrix. She also participated in two F. A, in 1931, she became a member of a group of female pioneers for science, the members of which shared her adventurous and determined spirit. She gained the rank of Section Officer in the service of the Womens Auxiliary Air Force and she was very likely the first woman to accomplish this during her work in February 1931 on Kharga Oasis project in Egypt. These photographs accomplished what would have far longer to do on foot. In addition, there also revealed future excavation sites, indeed, Lady Mary Baileys valuable contribution to the Kharga Oasis expedition was both innovative and impressive
10.
Beryl Bainbridge
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Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge DBE was an English writer from Liverpool. She was primarily known for her works of fiction, often macabre tales set among the English working classes. Bainbridge won the Whitbread Awards prize for best novel in 1977 and 1996 and she was described in 2007 as a national treasure. In 2008, The Times named Bainbridge on their list of The 50 greatest British writers since 1945, Beryl Bainbridge was born in Liverpool, Lancashire and brought up in nearby Formby. Her parents were Richard Bainbridge and Winifred Baines, although she gave her date of birth in Whos Who and elsewhere as 21 November 1934, she was born in 1932 and her birth was registered in the first quarter of 1933. When German former prisoner of war Harry Arno Franz wrote to her in November 1947 and she enjoyed writing, and by the age of 10 she was keeping a diary. She had elocution lessons and, when she was 11, appeared on the Northern Childrens Hour radio show, alongside Billie Whitelaw, Bainbridge was expelled from Merchant Taylors Girls School because she was caught with a dirty rhyme, written by someone else, in her gymslip pocket. She then went on to study at Cone-Ripman School, Tring, Hertfordshire, the summer she left school, she fell in love with a former German POW who was waiting to be repatriated. For the next six years, the couple corresponded and tried to get permission for the German man to return to Britain so that they could be married, but permission was denied and the relationship ended in 1953. In the following year, Beryl married artist Austin Davies, the two divorced soon after, leaving Bainbridge a single mother of two children. She later had a child by Alan Sharp, the actress Rudi Davies. In 1958, she attempted suicide by putting her head in a gas oven, Bainbridge spent her early years working as an actress, and she appeared in one 1961 episode of the soap opera Coronation Street playing an anti-nuclear protester. To help fill her time, Bainbridge began to write, primarily based on incidents from her childhood and her first novel, Harriet Said. was rejected by several publishers, one of whom found the central characters repulsive almost beyond belief. It was eventually published in 1972, four years after her third novel and her second and third novels were published and were received well by critics although they failed to earn much money. Seven more novels were written and published during the 1970s, of which the fifth, in the late 1970s, she wrote a screenplay based on her novel Sweet William. The resulting film, starring Sam Waterston, was released in 1980, from 1980 onwards, eight more novels appeared. The 1989 novel, An Awfully Big Adventure, was adapted into a film in 1995, starring Alan Rickman, in the 1990s, Bainbridge turned to historical fiction. These novels continued to be popular with critics, but this time, were commercially successful
11.
Lilian Barker
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Born in Islington, Barker was educated at the local elementary school system and graduated from Whitelands College. As a schoolteacher specializing with delinquent and other troubled children, Barker was appointed principal of the London County Councils Womens Institute correctional facility in 1913. Following the war, Barker joined the Ministry of Labours training department and, under her administration, Barker made sweeping reforms under a model humane reformatory focusing on education, guidance and rehabilitation. Barker was named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1944 for her services in connection with the welfare of women, ISBN 1-85743-228-2 Phillips, Charles and Alan Axelrod. Cops, Crooks, and Criminologists, An International Biographical Dictionary of Law Enforcement, ISBN 0-8160-3016-2 Biography of Dame Lilian Barker, DBE, andrejkoymasky. com, accessed 24 June 2014
12.
Margaret Beckett
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Dame Margaret Mary Beckett, DBE is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Derby South since 1983. She was the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party under John Smith from 1992 to 1994 and she later served in the Cabinet under Prime Minister Tony Blair in a number of roles, becoming Britains first female Foreign Secretary in 2006. Beckett was first elected to Parliament in 1974 for Lincoln and held positions in the governments of Harold Wilson. She lost her seat in 1979, but returned to the House of Commons in 1983 and she was appointed to Neil Kinnocks Shadow Cabinet shortly afterwards, being elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party in 1992, becoming the first woman to hold that role. When John Smith died in 1994, she became the first woman to lead the Labour Party, after Labour returned to power in 1997, Beckett became a member of Tony Blairs Cabinet initially as President of the Board of Trade. Following Blairs resignation as Prime Minister in 2007, Beckett was not initially given a position by new Prime Minister Gordon Brown, after some time, Brown appointed her Minister of State for Housing and Planning in 2008, before she left the government for the last time in 2009. She is the longest-serving female MP in the House of Commons}} and she is also one of the few remaining MPs who served in the Labour governments of the 1970s. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2013 New Year Honours for public, Margaret Beckett was born Margaret Mary Jackson in 1943, in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, into a working-class family. She had two sisters, one later a nun, the later a doctor and mother of three. She was educated at the Notre Dame High School for Girls in Norwich, then at University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology and she was an active member of the Students Union and served on its Council. In 1961, Beckett joined Associated Electrical Industries as a student apprentice in metallurgy and she joined the Transport and General Workers Union in 1964. She joined the University of Manchester in 1966 as an experiment officer in its metallurgy department, in 1970 Beckett went to work for the Labour Party as a researcher in industrial policy. She married the chairman of her local Constituency Labour Party, Lionel Leo Beckett in 1979 and he works as Becketts agent and aide, travelling with her and working in her private office. He is paid from Margaret Becketts staff allowance, one of the largest staff expenses, Leo Beckett has two sons from a previous marriage, and three grandchildren. Beckett and her husband enjoy caravan holidays, as they have throughout her political career, at the February 1974 general election, Beckett lost to Taverne by 1,297 votes. After the election she worked as a researcher for Judith Hart, Harold Wilson called another general election in October 1974, and Beckett again stood against Taverne in Lincoln at the October 1974 general election. This time Beckett became the MP, with a majority of 984 votes, almost immediately after her election she was appointed as Judith Harts Parliamentary Private Secretary. She remained in position until she lost her seat at the 1979 general election
