Irene Ward

Who was Irene Ward?

Irene Mary Bewick Ward, Baroness Ward of North Tyneside, CH, DBE was a British Conservative politician. She was a long-serving Member of Parliament.

Ward was educated privately and at Newcastle Church High School. She contested Morpeth in 1924 and 1929 without success and was elected to the House of Commons in 1931 for Wallsend, defeating Labour's Margaret Bondfield. A strong advocate for Tyneside industry and social conditions, she lost her seat in the 1945 general election, which Labour won by a landslide.

In 1950, Ward returned to Parliament for Tynemouth, again defeating a female incumbent, Grace Colman. An active backbencher, she introduced the bill that became the Rights of Entry Act, 1954. She promoted a Bill to pay pocket money to the elderly living in institutions. She also promoted the Nurses Act, 1961, and the Penalties for Drunkenness Act, 1962. She served on the influential Public Accounts Committee from 1964.

She is remembered in some quarters for an incident which caused amusement on both sides of the House when she threatened to "poke" the then Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Having received an evasive answer to a parliamentary question, she responded with the words: "I will poke the Prime Minister. I will poke him until I get a response."