Harriet Slater

{{Infobox officeholder

| honorific-prefix =

| name = Harriet Slater

| honorific-suffix = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CBE}}

| image =

| caption =

| constituency_MP = Stoke-on-Trent North

| term_start = 31 March 1953

| term_end = 30 March 1966

| primeminister = Winston Churchill

| predecessor = Albert Davies

| successor = John Forrester

| birth_name = Harriet Evans

| birth_date = {{birth year|1903}}

| birth_place =

| death_date = {{death date and age|1976|10|12|1903|df=yes}}

| death_place =

| party = Labour

| religion =

}}

Harriet Slater CBE (née Evans; 1903 – 12 October 1976) was a British Labour and Co-operative politician.

Life and career

Slater, née Evans, was born in Tunstall, Staffordshire, on 3 July 1903.{{cite book |last1=Smeeth |first1=Ruth |author1-link=Ruth Smeeth |chapter=Harriet Slater |editor1-last=Dale |editor1-first=Iain |editor1-link=Iain Dale |editor2-last=Smith |editor2-first=Jacqui |editor2-link=Jacqui Smith |title=The Honourable Ladies: Volume I: Profiles of Women MPs 1918–1996 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lvhqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT227 |date=4 September 2018 |access-date=24 January 2021 |publisher=Biteback Publishing |pages=227– |isbn=978-1-78590-449-3}} Educated at Hanley High School and Dudley Teachers' Training College, she was National Organiser for the Co-operative Party from 1942 to 1953, and a local councillor in Stoke-on-Trent from 1933 to 1965.

Slater was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Stoke-on-Trent North at a by-election in 1953, and served until her retirement at the 1966 general election.{{cite web|title=Centre for Advancement of Women in Politics|url=https://www.qub.ac.uk/cawp/UKhtmls/RecordsUK.htm|website=www.qub.ac.uk|access-date=30 December 2016}}{{cite web|title=Labour Women in Parliament|url=http://www.lwn.org.uk/labour_women_in_parliament |website=Labour Women's Network|access-date=30 December 2016}} From 1964 to 1966, she was a Government whip, the first woman to become one, with the formal title of Lord of the Treasury.{{cite web|title=The role of the Whips in Parliament|url=https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/education-programmes/universities-programme/university-teaching-resources/the-role-of-the-whips-in-parliament/|website=UK Parliament|access-date=30 December 2016}}

Ruth Smeeth writes that Slater saw her role in Parliament as "being a practical advocate for the working-class, especially working-class women ... As her parliamentary colleague Laurie Pavitt MP once wrote of her, Harriet was Stoke-on-Trent. She knew what mattered to the people she represented, because she was one of them." Slater's maiden speech was about racial justice, made spontaneously because of her strong feelings about equality.

She was married to Frederick Slater, whom she met through the Co-operative movement.

Slater was granted a life peerage on her retirement from Parliament.{{cite book |last=Short |first=Edward |author-link=Edward Short, Baron Glenamara |title=Whip to Wilson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mYaGAAAAIAAJ |publisher=Macdonald |year=1989 |page=251 |access-date=24 January 2021 |isbn=978-0-356-17615-4}}

References

External links

[http://www.qub.ac.uk/cawp/UK%20bios/UK_bios_50s.htm#hslater Centre for Advancement of Women in politics: Harriet Slater]
{{Rayment|date=February 2012}}

{{succession box

| title = Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent North

| years = 1953–1966

| before = Albert Davies

| after = John Forrester

}}

__FORCETOC__

Category:1903 births

Category:1976 deaths

Category:20th-century British women politicians

Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire

Category:Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies