Dorita Field

Who was Dorita Field?

Dorita Field was a South African-born town planner and politician in Northern Ireland.

Born as Dorita Wilson to a Protestant family in Pietermaritzburg, she studied zoology and mathematics at the University of South Africa. During World War II, she served in the South African Women's Naval Service on Robben Island. While working in the medical corps, she met a Northern Irishman, Dr. Claude Field. The two married and then moved to Belfast in 1946.

Field then studied social work and town planning at Queen's University Belfast, and worked in this field, eventually becoming Director of Community Services at Belfast City Council. In this role, she developed leisure centres in Belfast. After retiring in 1982, she spent two years in Zimbabwe, chairing a Catholic organisation documenting human rights abuses following the Zimbabwe War of Independence.

On returning to Northern Ireland, she joined the Social Democratic and Labour Party, which she claimed was the only party standing in the democratic socialist tradition she shared. Unlike the majority of the party, she claimed not to be an Irish nationalist. Notwithstanding, she became the party's treasurer.