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
William Brooks of Blackburn daughter, Nancy. They lived near Whalley, Lancashire. William Brooks of Blackburn William Brooks (1762–1846) was a supplier of cotton to spinners around Whalley and Blackburn. He was the son of John Brooks of Waddington, Lancashire. He went into partnership with Roger Cunliffe, of the Cunliffe family of Great Harwood, who had been mercers since Elizabethan times. At first cotton manufacturing was the main activity, but in 1792 they founded Cunliffe Brooks Bank at Blackburn. On Brooks' death in 1846 the bank moved its head office to Manchester. He had married Sarah Greenall, the daughter of Richard Greenall They had three