Joan Walmsley, Baroness Walmsley

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Joan Margaret Walmsley, Baroness Thomas of Gresford and Baroness Walmsley (born 12 April 1943) is a British Liberal Democrat politician. She is currently the party spokesperson on Education and Children in the House of Lords.

She was educated at Notre Dame High School in Liverpool, before attending Liverpool University from where she graduated with a BSc in Biology in 1966, and later completed a PGCE at Manchester Polytechnic in 1979. She worked as a Cytologist at the Christie Hospital in Manchester from 1965–1967 before teaching at Buxton College from 1979–1986. She began her own public relations consultancy in 1987.

In the 1992 general election she stood as the Liberal Democrat candidate in Morley & Leeds South, and Congleton in 1997 general election, but was defeated on both occasions.

She was raised to the peerage as Baroness Walmsley, of West Derby in the County of Merseyside in 2000, whereupon she took the Liberal Democrat Whip. She was the party's spokesperson in the House of Lords on: Education & Skills (2001–2003); Home Affairs (2003–2004); and again for Education & Skills from 2004 onwards. A member of the Science & Technology Select Committee 2000–2005, and then Chair of the Science & Technology Sub-Committee in 2002.

Lady Walmsley is President of Women Liberal Democrats; a Patron of the Family Planning Association, the Forum on Prisoner Education, and the Helena Kennedy Trust; an Ambassador for the NSPCC; and a Trustee of UNICEF UK, ADAPT, and the Botanic Gardens Conservation International. She lists her political interests as child protection, young offenders, and prison education.

Walmsley (née Watson) married John Richardson in 1966 (divorced 1980). With Richardson she has one son and one daughter. In 1986 she married Christopher Walmsley (he died in 1995). With Walmsley, she had one stepson and two stepdaughters. In 2005, she married Lord Thomas of Gresford, a fellow Liberal Democrat peer. Her recreations include music, the theatre, gardening, rowing, and "good company".