Mildred Gordon (politician)
Mildred Gordon, née Fellerman, (born 24 August 1923) is a British Labour politician.
Biography
Mildred Gordon was born in Stepney in 1923 and lived in The Highway. Mildred attended Betts Street and Christian Street Schools before attending Raines School. Her father and grandfather had stalls in Watney Market. Her father also served as a Councillor on Stepney Borough Council. She became a teacher in 1945 and her first post was at Nicholas Gibson School in The Highway, Stepney. Gordon left teaching in 1985.
She married Trotskyist Sam Gordon in 1948, becoming active in the Revolutionary Communist Party. The Gordons had one son, David. Sam Gordon died in 1982, and Mildred later remarried. Her second husband Nils Dahl, was at one time Trotsky's bodyguard during his exile in Norway.
Before being elected to Parliament, Gordon had been a school governor, governor of Hackney College, and a visiting typewriting teacher, retraining women in Holloway prison. Gordon had also been the adviser on older women to the GLC's Women's Committee, during Ken Livingstone's tenure as Leader of the GLC.
A lifetime Labour Party activist, Gordon had been a Labour candidate for Hendon Council, the Greater London Council and the European Parliament. She was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Bow and Poplar in 1987, with a majority in excess of 4,000 despite a strong showing from the Liberal Democrats who had won Tower Hamlets Council the year before. She was deselected in favour of Jim Fitzpatrick at the 1997 general election.
Gordon has the Freedom of the Borough of Tower Hamlets and founded The Tower Hamlets Schools' Public Speaking Competition in 1987.
In 2006, Gordon opened a new block of flats called Thirza House in Shadwell for older people, that was built by Tower Hamlets Community Housing (THCH), a local Housing Association, which was in the south-west corner of her old constituency.
References
External links
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Mildred Gordon
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Ian Mikardo |
Member of Parliament for Bow and Poplar 1987–1997 |
Constituency abolished |