Lola Young, Baroness Young of Hornsey

Who is Lola Young, Baroness Young of Hornsey?

Lola Young, Baroness Young of Hornsey, OBE is a British artist, author, and Crossbench peer.

Young was educated at the Parliament Hill School for Girls in London and went then to the New College of Speech and Drama, where she received a diploma in dramatic art in 1975, and a teaching certificate one year later. In 1988 she graduated from Middlesex Polytechnic with a Bachelor of Arts in Contemporary Cultural Studies.

Young worked as a professional actress from 1976 to 1984, and had been a residential social worker in the London Borough of Islington from 1971 to 1973. Her most prominent role as an actress was in children's sitcom Metal Mickey which ran from 1980 - 1983. In 1985, she became co-director and training and development manager at the Haringey Arts Council, a post she held until 1989.

From 1990 to 1992, Young was lecturer in media studies at the Polytechnic of West London. In the following she was lecturer, senior lecturer, principal lecturer, Professor of cultural studies and in the end Emeritus professor at the Middlesex University. In 1995 she published Fear of the Dark: Race, Gender and Sexuality in Cinema.

Young became Project director of the Archives and Museum of Black Heritage in 1997, she was Commissioner in the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts in the years 2000 and 2001, and Chair at the Nitro Theatre Company in 2004.