Evelyn Denington, Baroness Denington

Baroness Denington of Stevenage (9 August 1907, London – 22 August 1998) was a British politician and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Evelyn Joyce Bursill was educated at Blackheath High School, Blackheath, London and at Bedford College. She was a journalist between 1927 and 1931. She was a teacher between 1933 and 1950. She held the office of Member of the St. Pancras Borough Council between 1945 and 1959. She held the office of Member of the London City Council between 1946 and 1965. She held the office of Member of the Greater London Council between 1964 and 1977.

After leaving Bedford College she worked as an editorial assistant at "Architecture and Building News". Decades later she was made an honorary fellow of the RIBA and an honorary member of the Royal Town Planning Institute.

She was the daughter of Philip Charles Bursill and Edith Rowena Bursill. She married Cecil Dallas Denington in 1935. Cecil Denington was a science teacher and he and his wife had a shared interest in education. Evelyn Denington became secretary to the National Association of Labour Teachers in 1938, and until 1950 taught in LCC junior schools. These were the times when battles over comprehensive schools, which the Deningtons supported, were rife.

She soon moved up the hierarchy of the LCC (which from 1964 was replaced by the Greater London Council) where there was much competition among the bright and ambitious. She became deputy leader of the Labour Opposition on the Council in 1967 and then Chairman of the GLC in 1975-76. She also took over the enormous problem of London transport, chairing the transport committee from 1973 until 1975. It was she, firm as ever, who established free buses for pensioners.

Lewis Silkin, then Minister for Town and Country Planning, appointed her to Stevenage New Town Commission in 1966 where she stayed for 30 years (14 of them as Chairman).

She and her husband retired to Hove; they had no children. She died on 22 August 1998, aged 91.

Appointments/Honours

She was invested as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1966 and later promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1974.

She was created Baroness Denington, of Stevenage in the County of Hertford (a life peerage) on 10 July 1978.

Legacy

* Evelyn Denington Road, London was named in her honour.

Links

*http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-2814600/Evelyn-Denington-a-personal-appreciation.html
*http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19980912/ai_n14170853
*http://www.thepeerage.com/index_life_peer.htm