Barbara Wootton, Baroness Wootton of Abinger

Who was Barbara Wootton, Baroness Wootton of Abinger?

Barbara Wootton, Baroness Wootton of Abinger CH was a British sociologist and criminologist. She was one of the first four life peers appointed under the Life Peerages Act 1958. She was President of the British Sociological Association 1959-1964.

Born Barbara Adam in Cambridge, the daughter of the classicist James Adam and Adele Marion, she was educated at the Perse School for Girls. She studied Classics and Economics at Girton College, Cambridge from 1915 to 1919. In 1917, she married John Wootton. He was wounded during World War I and died weeks after their marriage. She married George Wright in 1934. He died in 1964.

In the 1930s Wootton was a member of the Federal Union and represented the Union in a historic debate against Edgar Hardcastle of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, which was later published as a pamphlet. In the Second World War she considered herself as a conscientious objector, although she was never liable for military service. She was, however, required, under the Registration for Employment Order 1941, to be interviewed in 1943 by a National Service Officer of the Ministry of Labour and National Service, who deemed her service as an unpaid magistrate to be of sufficient value as not to require direction to any employment. With her agreement, her husband, George Wright, registered as a conscientious objector in 1941, and did farm work and later civil defence work.