Rennie Fritchie, Baroness Fritchie

Irene Tordoff Fritchie, Baroness Fritchie, DBE (née Fennell; 29 April 1942 – 12 March 2026), known as Rennie Fritchie, was a British life peer who was a member of the House of Lords.

Early life and career Irene Tordoff Fennell was born on 29 April 1942, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Frederick Fennell. She was educated at Ribston Hall Grammar School for Girls in Gloucester and had had a long career specialising in training and development. Now described as a "portfolio" worker, she held various positions, including Commissioner for Public Appointments from 1999 to 2005, and President of the Pennell Initiative for Women's Health in Later Life.

In the 1970s, she was one of the first full-time women's training advisers and pioneered the training of staff in the then new Equal Opportunities Commission. Using a German Marshall Fellowship awarded in 1985, she drew lessons from the United States of America for the United Kingdom for programmes to improve the status of women. She has published extensively on these topics and contributed regularly on them to programmes on television and radio. She became Chairman of Nominet in 2010.

Affiliations She held a number of positions outside government. She held an honorary Professorship in Creative Leadership at York University and was Pro-Chancellor at Southampton University, a Civil Service Commissioner and Vice-Chair of the Stroud and Swindon Building Society. She was active in a number of charities, Fritchie has been awarded honorary degrees by a number of academic institutions. Fritchie was Chair of the 2gether NHS Foundation Trust in Gloucestershire, and in 2012 was appointed the new chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire.

Personal life and death In 1960, she married Don Jamie Fritchie with whom she had two children, the elder dying in 1991. She was widowed in 1992. Baroness Fritchie died on 12 March 2026, at the age of 83.

Honours Fritchie became a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1996 New Year Honours.

On 31 May 2005, Fritchie was made a life peer as Baroness Fritchie, of Gloucester in the County of Gloucestershire, and she sat as a crossbencher in the House of Lords. Fritchie retired from the House of Lords on 1 July 2024.

Arms