Angela Rumbold

She was educated at the Perse School for Girls, Cambridge, Notting Hill & Ealing High School and King's College, London. She qualified as a barrister after earning her LLB, but never practised. She travelled across the United States with her father, a physicist who was Pro-Rector of the Imperial College until his death.

She married John Rumbold, a solicitor, by whom she had two sons and a daughter and, as of November 2008, seven grandchildren.

She returned to a working life after raising her children and worked as the Chief Executive for a charity, The National Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital. Following that post, as she had become a local councillor, she worked at the Greater London Council as a researcher, transferring across to work on the London desk at Conservative Central Office.

She served on many national committees including the Doctors’ and Dentists’ Review Body and was Chairman of the Teachers’ Negotiating Committee until it was closed down by Act of Parliament.

Rumbold served as a councillor in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames between 1974 and 1983.

In 1982, Bruce Douglas-Mann, the MP for Mitcham and Morden, left the Labour Party to join the Social Democratic Party (SDP). He decided to resign as an MP and seek re-election under the SDP banner. The resulting by-election was held during the Falklands War and was won by Rumbold. She held the seat for the Conservatives in the landslide 1983 general election and for a further 14 years, usually with robust majorities.

Rumbold was known for her pro-nuclear views: she was a co-founder of Women For the Bomb and vice-chairwoman of the Women and Families for Defence.[2]

Angela Rumbold served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Transport, Under Secretary at the Department of Environment, Minister of State for Education and Minister of State at the Home Office. In 1992 she became the Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party.

At the 1997 general election she lost her seat to Labour's Siobhain McDonagh on a swing of 11.6%, similar to the national average.

After leaving the House of Commons in 1997 she returned to many of her voluntary activities. She was Chair of the Governing Body of both Danes Hill School in Oxshott and Surbiton High School in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, as well as Vice Chair of the Governing Body of Tolworth Girls’ School, a large secondary modern school also in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames.

She was Chair of Governors of Wimbledon High School and a Governor of More House Girls’ School in Knightsbridge. She was Chair of the Court of Governors of Mill Hill School for nine years and set up its Pre-prep School Grimsdells. She also chaired the Minerva Fund for replacement of bursaries in Girls' Day School Trust schools after the closure of the Assisted Places Scheme.

She was co-Chair of the Association of Governing Bodies of Independent Schools, and Chair of the Finance and General Purposes Committee of the Independent Schools Council. She was a member of the Trust and Governing Council of the United Church Schools Trust, and Chair of the United Learning Trust.

• RUMBOLD, Rt Hon. Dame Angela (Claire Rosemary), Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2015; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2014
• Garnett, Mark. "Rumbold, Dame Angela Claire Rosemary". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/103211. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• "Times Guide to the House of Commons", Times Newspapers Limited, 1983 and 1997 editions
• FORMER WOMEN MPs FIRST ELECTED IN THE 1980s Centre for Advancement of Women in Politics

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Angela Rumbold