Alice Bacon, Baroness Bacon


Alice Martha Bacon, Baroness Bacon, was a British Labour Party politician. She was born in Normanton, West Yorkshire. Her father was a miner and Labour county councillor. She was educated at Normanton Girls' High School and Stockwell Teachers' Training College before becoming a schoolteacher.

Political career

Bacon delivered her first political speech at the age of 16.
At the 1945 general election, she was elected as MP for Leeds North East. When constituency boundaries were revised for the 1955 general election, she transferred to the Leeds South East constituency, and served as that constituency's MP until she retired at the 1970 general election.
Bacon was a member of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee from 1941 until 1970, and served as the party's chair from 1950 to 1951. In the 1953 Coronation Honours she was appointed a CBE.
When Labour returned to government in 1964, Bacon became a Minister of State at the Home Office, remaining until 1967, and served under Frank Soskice and Roy Jenkins in a period of liberalising reforms. She was appointed to the Privy Council in 1966. From 1967 to 1970 she was Minister of State at the Department of Education and Science.
On her retirement from the House of Commons, Bacon was created on 14 October 1970 Baroness Bacon of the City of Leeds and of Normanton in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

Memorial

A Leeds Civic Trust Blue Plaque was unveiled by Rachel Reeves in 2019 in Leeds Corn Exchange.
, unveiled by her biographer Rachel Reeves MP