Patricia Hollis

Patricia Lesley Hollis, Baroness Hollis of Heigham, PC, DL (née Wells; 24 May 1941 – 13 October 2018 ) was a historian and a Labour member of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom.

Biography

Early life and education Hollis was educated at Plympton Grammar School, at Girton College, Cambridge (BA), the University of California and Columbia University (both where she was Harkness Fellow from 1962 to 1964), and at Nuffield College, Oxford (MA, DPhil). While in the United States, Hollis was active in the civil rights movement, picketing segregated restaurants and helping hold voter registration drives in Mississippi.

She was married to Martin Hollis, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia from 1965 until his death in 1998: they had two sons.

Academic career She was a lecturer in modern history, reader and Dean at the University of East Anglia in Norwich from 1967 until 1990. Amongst her academic publications was Ladies Elect: Women in English Local Government, 1865–1914, about the work of the Women's Local Government Society. She became Patron of this society when it was re-formed.

She served as a National Commissioner for English Heritage from 1988 until 1991.

Political life Patricia Hollis contested the Great Yarmouth constituency for Labour at the February 1974 general election, the October 1974 election and at the 1979 general election. Hollis served on the Press Council from 1988 to 1990. and was a director of Radio Broadland from 1983 until 1997.

She was created a life peer as Baroness Hollis of Heigham, of Heigham in the City of Norwich on 1 June 1990 and was an Opposition Whip in the House of Lords between 1990 and 1995, and Opposition Spokeswoman on Housing, Local Government, the Environment, Disability and Social Security from 1990. While in opposition she carried through the Lords the proposals for pension sharing on divorce which have now become law.

Hollis was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Work and Pensions (previously Department of Social Security) from 5 May 1997 to the 2005 reshuffle, an honorary fellow of Girton College, Cambridge and the author of several books on women's history and on labour history. Her book Jennie Lee - a life (1997), won the Orwell Prize for political biography and the Wolfson History Prize for the history book of the year.

Hollis died in October 2018, aged 77, following a long illness. On 2 June 2001 she was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of the University by the Open University. She was appointed as a deputy lieutenant for the County of Norfolk, allowing her the post-nominal Letters "DL" for life. She was awarded the Freedom of the City of Norwich by the Norwich City Council.