Frank Field's Roots were in the Chiswick Area
Death announced of peer who once was a councillor for Turnham Green
Frank Field's official portrait from 2017. Picture: UK Parliament
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April 24, 2024
The death has been announced this Wednesday (24 April) of Lord Field of Birkenhead, the former Labour minister who was aged 81.
Born in July 1942, one of three brothers, hie mother worked at Belmont School and he attended St. Clement Danes in White City, which at the time was a grammar school, before going to the University of Hull.
He worshipped at St. Nicholas Church where he established a faith that was the foundation of his politic thinking and the basis for his later radical proposals for welfare reform.
His father was a labourer, and along with his wife, was a member of the Conservative Party which Frank Field also joined. However, defected to Labour in 1960 due to his opposition to apartheid in South Africa.
He went on to work in further education in Hammersmith and Southwark and was elected Labour councillor for Turnham Green ward on Hounslow Council in 1964 but lost the seat at the 1968 local elections.
He became the Director of the Child Poverty Action Group in 1969, working there for a decade as well as researching for the Low Pay Unit from 1974 to 1980.
In 1979 he became MP for Birkenhead which soon saw him in conflict with Militant Tendency and he kept his seat only after threatening to stand as an independent if deselected.
Brought in by Tony Blair as a Minister, to ‘think the unthinkable’ on welfare reform, his views on the welfare state, which he regarded as degrading for the people it was meant to support, were mainly too radical to be implemented as policy.
As a man who never owned a TV preferring to read about the history of the Church of England in the evening, he became an acknowledged expert on the church and was a member of the General Synod campaigning for women Bishops.
In 2014 he returned to St Nicholas Church for a Conversational Evensong in which he talked about the foundations of his faith and his admiration for Margaret Thatcher who he regarded as a friend.
His maverick views eventually led to him resigning the Labour whip after he was threatened with deselection over his support for Brexit. He contended that he remained a party member and was elevated to the Lords in 2020.
A statement issued by his Parliamentary office, said he had died following a period of illness adding, "Frank was an extraordinary individual who spent his life fighting poverty, injustice and environmental destruction.
"His decency and faith in people's self-interested altruism made a unique contribution to British politics."
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