17 Facts About Judith Hart

Judith Hart served as a Member of Parliament for 28 years, from 1959 to 1987.

Judith Hart served as a government minister during the 1960s and 1970s before entering the House of Lords in 1988.

Judith Hart's mother died when she was eleven years old; a year later, she adopted the name Judith on a train to London.

Judith Hart stood again in Aberdeen South in 1955 in "The Battle of the Housewives" but lost to Lady Tweedsmuir.

Judith Hart was elected as member for Lanark in 1959, winning by 700 votes after she arranged postal votes for displaced miners.

Judith Hart held ministerial office as joint Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland from 1964 to 1966, Minister of State, Commonwealth Office, Minister of Social Security, Paymaster General from 1968 to 1969, and as Minister of Overseas Development from 1969 to 1970,1974 to 1975 and 1977 to 1979.

In opposition, Judith Hart was frontbench spokesman on overseas aid from 1970 to 1974 and 1979 to 1980.

Judith Hart's views were often controversial and in 1972 she was mailed a bomb over her controversial work with the Labour Party's Southern African Liberation Fund.

In 1974, when Labour returned to power, Judith Hart was nearly passed over for a ministerial post due to her and her husband's connections to communism.

Judith Hart wrote several books, including Aid and Liberation: A Socialist Study of Aid Politics, published in 1973.

Later, following her return as Minister of Overseas Development in 1977, Judith Hart developed a plan to redistribute British aid to prioritise the poorest countries, but it conflicted with diplomatic and trade priorities and was thwarted by the Conservative victory at the 1979 general election.

Judith Hart was co-chairman of the Women's National Commission from 1969 to 1970.

Judith Hart was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1967, and appointed a DBE in 1979.

Judith Hart met her husband, Dr Anthony Bernard Hart, at an Association of Scientific Workers meeting.

Judith Hart was politically active, but when they were both selected as candidates for the Labour party in 1959, he withdrew his candidacy to support her campaign.

When Judith Hart was appointed Minister of State for Commonwealth Affairs in 1966, her mother-in-law moved in to help with the children.

Judith Hart died of bone cancer at the Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton, London, in 1991, aged 67.