Dorita Field

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Dorita Field (1922 - January 2005) was a South African-born town planner and politician in Northern Ireland.

Born Dorita Wilson to a Protestant family in Pietermaritzburg, she studied zoology and mathematics at the University of South Africa. During World War II, she served in the South African Women's Naval Service on Robbens Island. While working in the medical corps, she met the Northern Irish surgeon Claude Field. The two married and then moved to Belfast in 1946.[1]

Field then studied social work and town planning at Queen's University Belfast, and worked in this field,[1] eventually becoming Director of Community Services at Belfast City Council. In this role, she developed leisure centres in Belfast.[2]

After retiring in 1982, she spent two years in Zimbabwe, chairing a Catholic organisation documenting human rights abuses following the Zimbabwe War of Independence.[1]

On returning to Northern Ireland, she joined the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), which she saw as standing in a democratic socialist tradition she shared. Unlike the majority of the party, she claimed not to be an Irish nationalist. Despite this, she became the party treasurer.[1] In 1989, she was elected to Belfast City Council, representing the Balmoral ward. In 1993, her home was firebombed by the Ulster Freedom Fighters, on the same night that Alasdair McDonnell's house was attacked.[2] During this period, she broke with SDLP tradition by attending Remembrance Day commemorations alongside Unionists, for which she wore both a red and a pacifist white poppy.[1]

Field, who had campaigned against apartheid, spent three months on a European Union team monitoring the South African general election, 1994. In 1996, she was elected to the Northern Ireland Forum as one of the SDLP's two "top-up" members.[1]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Anne McHardy, Dorita Field - Obituaries, Guardian Unlimited, 10 January 2005
  2. ^ a b Ben Lowry, "Obituary: SDLP stalwart Dorita Field dies", Belfast Telegraph, 4 January 2005