Patricia Ford

Who was Patricia Ford?

Patricia Ford, later Lady Fisher, was briefly an Ulster Unionist Party politician in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. She was the first woman Member of Parliament from Northern Ireland, and the second woman to be returned to a seat in Westminster from a constituency in Ireland.

Patricia Smiles was born at Donaghadee and educated at Bangor Collegiate School, Glendower Preparatory School, London, and abroad. Her father was Ulster Unionist MP Sir Walter D. Smiles and her mother Margaret Heigway. Mrs Beeton was her great-aunt.

Mrs Ford, as she then was, returned from living in Cheshire upon her father's death in the MV Princess Victoria disaster in January 1953 and was returned unopposed to Parliament from his North Down constituency. In her maiden speech to the House she was required to apologise for an article she had written in the Sunday Express in which she mentioned that Bessie Braddock and Edith Summerskill had been snoring whilst asleep in the lady members' room. The matter was referred to the Committee for Privileges. Ford was a strong proponent of equal pay between the sexes and rode in a horse-drawn carriage to Parliament to draw attention to the matter.