Brenda Dean, Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde

Brenda Dean, Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, (29 April 1943 – 13 March 2018) was a British trade unionist and Labour Party politician. As general secretary of SOGAT from 1985 until 1991, she was "the first woman elected to head a major industrial trade union."

Trade union career She began her career as a trade unionist as a teenager,

Member of the House of Lords Dean was raised to the peerage in October 1993 as Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, of Eccles in the County of Greater Manchester and was appointed to the Privy Council in 1998. She chaired the armed forces pay review body (1999-2004), the Covent Garden market authority (2005–13) and the Housing Corporation, now Homes England, (1997-2003); and was a member of the Royal Commission on House of Lords Reform in 1999.

She was interviewed by National Life Stories in 2007–8 for the 'Oral History of the British Press' collection held by the British Library.

She became a director for Labour Tomorrow on 28 June 2016, an organisation that funds groups that oppose Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.

Personal life From 1977, her partner was Keith McDowall, later deputy director general of the Confederation of British Industry; they married in 1988.

Theatre portrayal In March 2026 the story of Brenda Dean and her fight to save 5000 jobs premiered as In The Print at the King’s Head Theatre, Islington.

Written by Robert Khan and Tom Salinsky, the play depicts a true story of power, print and protest and portrays Dean’s influence in matters that changed Fleet Street forever.