Alice Bacon, Baroness Bacon

Who was Alice Bacon, Baroness Bacon?

Alice Martha Bacon, Baroness Bacon, CBE was a British Labour Party politician. Her father was a miner and Labour County Councillor. She was educated at Normanton Girls' High School and Stockwell Training College. She then worked as a teacher.

At the 1945 general election, she was elected as Member of Parliament for Leeds North East. When constituency boundaries were revised for the 1955 general election, she transferred to the Leeds South East constituency, and served as that constituency's MP until she retired at the 1970 general election.

Bacon was a member of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee from 1941 until 1970, and served as the party's chair from 1950 to 1951.

When Labour re-entered government in 1964, she became a Minister of State at the Home Office remaining until 1967, and served under Frank Soskice and Roy Jenkins during a period when liberalising reforms were introduced. From 1967 to 1970, she held the same rank at the Department of Education and Science.

After her retirement from the House of Commons, she was created Baroness Bacon, of the City of Leeds and of Normanton in the West Riding of the County of York on 14 October 1970.