Mary Wilson, Baroness Wilson of Rievaulx

Who is Mary Wilson, Baroness Wilson of Rievaulx?

Gladys Mary Wilson, Baroness Wilson of Rievaulx is an English poet, best known as the widow of former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

She was born Gladys Mary Baldwin in Diss, Norfolk, the daughter of Rev Daniel Baldwin, who was a Congregationalist minister. She attended boarding school at Milton Mount College near Crawley, leaving in 1932 to attend a secretarial course in Cumbria for two years. She was employed as a shorthand typist at Lever Brothers in Port Sunlight before marrying Harold Wilson on New Year's Day, 1940. She and Wilson had two sons, Robin and Giles.

In 1970 her volume of poetry, Selected Poems, was published. It was generally assumed that she owed her subsequent success as a poet to her position as the Prime Minister's wife. Nevertheless, her name was at one time mentioned as a possibility for the next Poet Laureate.

In 1976 Wilson was one of three judges of the Man Booker Prize, the other judges being Walter Allen and Francis King.

According to the DNB entry for Harold Wilson, written by Roy Jenkins, Mary Wilson was not too happy with life as a "political" wife.