Diana Elles

Diana Elles, Baroness Elles was a barrister, social worker and a vigorous campaigner for women's rights and against abortion. She died on 17 October 2009 at the age of 88.

Background

After Edward Heath secured her a life peerage in 1972, Elles had a distinguished political career in the European Parliament and the United Nations as well as at Westminster.

According to the Telegraph:

Diana Louie Newcombe was born on July 19 1921, the daughter of Colonel Stewart "Skinface" Newcombe, DSO, a friend of Lawrence of Arabia, and the former Elisabeth Chaki, a Frenchwoman who helped Newcombe escape from captivity in Turkey.

Educated at private schools in England, France and Italy, she served in the WAAF from 1941 to 1945, then was called to the Bar. She interrupted her practice to have a family, returning to work in child care in south London, continuing until she entered the Lords. She became a director of the National Institute of Houseworkers and, when the Queen Mother opened its training college in 1963, launched a national competition to find a better word for "housework".

In May 1969 Diana Elles launched the party policy paper Fair Share for the Fair Sex, weathering the embarrassment of being the only woman on the drafting committee. Two years later she chaired a Conservative women's panel producing recommendations on one-parent families for the government-appointed Finer Committee; she described the report, Unhappy Families, as "a very tragic document".

Diana Elles became UK chairman of the European Union of Women (EUW) – a combination of centre-Right parties across Europe – in July 1970, just after Heath arrived in Downing Street. (She would be its international chairman from 1973 to 1979). He saw her potential, and in March 1972 she was created Baroness Elles of the City of Westminster.

She was now most active in the Lords on social issues: moving to redefine the embryo as existing from the moment of fertilisation; pressing to address "the gross unfairness for the [deserted] wife who becomes a burden on the State"; and arguing that many marriages were saved by a holiday, as the father realised with anguish that he would not see his children next summer.

Views

A sponsor of Family Education Trust since 1990, Baroness Elles held firmly to the view that sex education was best left to parents and that where it was provided in schools, parents should be fully consulted. She actively fought to protect the unborn child from conception and called on the government to stop making grants to organisations involved in the sale of contraceptives. We are most grateful to her for having the courage and strength of conviction to speak out in support of the family and send our condolences to her relatives and close friends.

Affiliations

• UK Association of European Lawyers
• Brussels law firm Van Bael and Bellis - joined after leaving the European Parliament in 1989
• Family Education Trust - sponsor 1990-2009