Angela Rumbold

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Dame Angela Christina Rosemary Rumbold, DBE (born 11 August 1932) is a British Conservative Party politician. She currently has the distinction of being the most recent Conservative Member of Parliament to gain a seat at a parliamentary by-election, and also the most recent British MP of any governing party to gain a seat in a by-election.

1 Overview
2 Education
3 Marriage and career
4 References

[edit] Overview

Rumbold was educated at King's College London and served as a councillor in the Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames 1974-83. She was chairman of the National Association for Children in Hospital.

In 1982, the MP for Mitcham and Morden, Bruce Douglas-Mann, had left the Labour Party to join the SDP. He decided to resign as an MP and seek re-election upon his defection, but lost to Rumbold. The election was held during the Falklands War.

Rumbold served as a minister for Environment, Education and Science, and in the Home Office during the Thatcher and Major administrations. However, at the 1997 general election, she lost her seat to Labour's Siobhain McDonagh.

[edit] Education

Angela Rumbold was educated at the Perse School for Girls, Cambridge, Notting Hill and Ealing High School and King’s College London. She qualified as a Barrister after gaining LLB but never practised. Instead she travelled across the USA with her Father who was a very distinguished physicist and ended his days as Pro-Rector of Imperial College.

[edit] Marriage and career

Married to John Rumbold - a Solicitor - and has three children, two sons and a daughter, and now seven grandchildren. Returned to a working life after a period raising children and worked as the Chief Executive for a charity known as The National Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital. After that, and because she had become a local Councillor, she went to work at the Greater London Council as a researcher - transferring across to work on the London desk at Conservative Central Office.

Elected to Parliament 1982 - Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Transport, Under Secretary at the Department of Environment, Minister of State for Education and Deputy for the Secretary of State for Education, and ditto at the Home Office; in 1992 she went to be Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party.

She served on many National committees including the Doctors’ and Dentists’ Review Body and was Chairman of the old Teachers’ Negotiating Committee until it was closed down by Act of Parliament!

On leaving Westminster she returned to many of her voluntary activities. She is now Chairman of the Governing Body of both Danes Hill School in Oxshott and Surbiton High School in Kingston upon Thames, as well as Vice Chair of the Governing Body of Tolworth Girls’ School, a large comprehensive school in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames. She is former Chair of Governors of Wimbledon High School and a former Governor of More House Girls’ School in Knightsbridge. She was Chair of the Court of Governors of Mill Hill School for nine years and set up its Pre-prep School Grimsdells. She also chaired the Minerva Fund for replacement of bursaries in GDST schools after the closure of the Assisted Places Scheme.

She is co-Chair of the Association of Governing Bodies of Independent Schools, and Chair of the Finance and General Purposes Committee of the Independent Schools Council. She is a member of the Trust and Governing Council of the United Church Schools Trust, and Chair of the United Learning Trust, the Board responsible for the Academies held by the UCST.