Barbara Castle Barbara Castle Barbara Anne Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn, PC, GCOT ("née" Betts; 6 October 1910 – 3 May 2002) was a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament for Blackburn from 1945 to 1979, making her the longest-serving female MP in the history of the House of Commons until that record was broken in 2007 by Gwyneth Dunwoody. She later became the Member of the European Parliament for Greater Manchester from 1979 to 1989 and subsequently a member of the House of Lords, having been granted a life peerage in 1990. One of the most significant
Thomas Richardson (Labour politician) Thomas Richardson (Labour politician) Thomas Richardson (6 June 1868 – 22 October 1928) was a Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Whitehaven, in Cumberland, from 1910 to 1918. Thomas Richardson was the first born of Robert Richardson and his wife Margaret and was named for his grandfather who died shortly before he was born. His father worked as a coal miner and the family had lived at Usworth Colliery. Thomas began working as a coal miner as well. In 1885 his father died in an explosion in the Usworth pit which