Bessie Braddock (1899 1970) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Me

mber of Parliament (MP) for the Liverpool Exchange division from 1945 to 1970. S
he was a member of Liverpool County Borough Council from 1930 to 1961. Although
she never held office in government, she won a national reputation for her campa
igns in connection with housing, public health and other social issues. Braddock
supported the 1945 51 Attlee ministry's reform agenda, particularly the establish
ment of the National Health Service in 1948. She served on Labour's National Exe
cutive Committee between 1947 and 1969. For most of her parliamentary career she
was a member of Liverpool's council, and was a central figure in a controversy
in the 1950s over the city's flooding of the Tryweryn Valley to construct a rese
rvoir. When Labour won the 1964 general election she refused office on the groun
ds of age and health; thereafter her parliamentary contributions dwindled as her
health worsened. Towards the end of her life she became Liverpool's first woman
freeman. Her Guardian obituarist hailed her as "one of the most distinctive pol
itical personalities of the century". (Full article...)
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