Alice in Westminster: The Political Life of Alice Bacon at The People’s History Museum
Creative Tourist
Head to The People’s History Museum as Rachel Reeves, Labour MP for Leeds West, sheds light on the life and career of Alice Bacon. Bacon was the first woman to represent Leeds as an MP, and the subject of a new biography by Reeves.
The daughter of a Yorkshire coal miner who lived her whole life in the village of Normanton, Alice was an unlikely but powerful force behind the ground-breaking social reforms of post-war Labour, including the legalisation of abortion, the de-criminalisation of homosexuality and the abolition of the death penalty. A former teacher, her real passion was comprehensive education, and, as Minister for Education in the late 1960s, she was a key player in its national roll-out under Anthony Crosland.
Like so many women in the politics of the period, Alice has been written out of history. Find out why it is time her legacy was brought back to the fore.
