Barbara Brooke, Baroness Brooke of Ystradfellte

Barbara Muriel Brooke, Baroness Brooke of Ystradfellte, Baroness Brooke of Cumnor (née Mathews; 14 January 1908 – 1 September 2000) was a British Conservative Party politician.

Personal life Baroness Brooke was the youngest of five children of a Welsh minister, Rev. Alfred Augustus Mathews, and his wife, Ethel Frances. She was educated at Queen Anne's School in Caversham, Berkshire and the Gloucester Training College of Domestic Science.

On 22 April 1933, she married fellow Conservative, Henry Brooke; the couple had four children: Peter Leonard Brooke (1934–2023), later The Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, a Conservative politician. Sir Henry Brooke (1936–2018), a judge and Lord Justice of Appeal. Honor Leslie Brooke (born 1941), married Thomas Nigel Miller. Margaret Hilary Diana Brooke (born 1944), married James Pulfer.

Career After having started a family, Brooke entered politics in 1948, when she became a member of Hampstead Council, a seat she held until 1965; In 1964, she was raised to the peerage as Baroness Brooke of Ystradfellte, of Ystradfellte in the County of Brecknock and two years later her husband was created Baron Brooke of Cumnor.