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
Blackburn Second Monoplane Blackburn Second Monoplane The Blackburn Second Monoplane was strongly influenced by the French "Antoinette" and was much more successful than Robert Blackburn's first aircraft. The lone aircraft was built in Leeds, UK in 1910. The First Monoplane was not a success, barely leaving the ground before crashing. His second machine, the Second Monoplane was very different, and resembled Léon Levavasseur's Antoinette design which Blackburn had seen in France. The monoplane wing was rectangular with a constant chord, significant dihedral and square tips, and had a thin aerofoil section cambered on the underside, as was usual at the time. Lateral control