Peggy Fenner

The Right Honourable Dame Peggy Fenner DBE
Member of Parliament for Medway
In office 9 June 1983 – 30 April 1997
Preceded by	New constituency
Succeeded by	Bob Marshall-Andrews
Member of Parliament for Rochester and Chatham
In office 3 May 1979 – 8 June 1983
Preceded by	Robert Bean
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
Member of Parliament for Rochester and Chatham
In office 18 June 1970 – 10 October 1974
Preceded by	Anne Kerr
Succeeded by	Robert Bean
British Delegate to the European Parliament 1974–1975
In office 24 July 1974 – 28 February 1975
Personal details
Born	12 November 1922
Died	15 September 2014 (aged 91)
Nationality	British
Political party	Conservative
Children	1 daughter

Dame Peggy Edith Fenner, DBE (12 November 1922 – 15 September 2014) was a British Conservative Party politician.

Political career

After unsuccessfully fighting Newcastle-under-Lyme in 1966, Fenner was elected MP for Rochester and Chatham at the 1970 general election. She lost the seat at the October 1974 election to the Labour candidate Robert Bean, but regained it by defeating Bean at the 1979 election.

At the 1983 election the Rochester and Chatham seat was abolished and Fenner was elected MP for the new constituency of Medway. She continued to hold the seat for the next fourteen years, being re-elected at the 1987 and 1992 general elections, until she lost it at the 1997 election to Labour's Bob Marshall-Andrews. On the death of Baroness Jeger in 2007, Fenner became the oldest living woman to have served as an MP in the United Kingdom.

Peggy Fenner served as Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, with responsibility for food, from November 1972 to February 1974 under Edward Heath, and again from September 1981 to September 1986 under Margaret Thatcher.^[1] Upon leaving the government in 1986 she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.^[2]

Personal life

Fenner married architect Bernard Fenner and the couple had a daughter; both predeceased her. She died on 15 September 2014.^[3]

References

1. "Dame Peggy Fenner – obituary". Daily Telegraph. 6 October 2014. Retrieved 9 October 2014.
2. Roth, Andrew (8 October 2014). "Dame Peggy Fenner obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 October 2014.
3. "UK's most senior stateswoman Dame Peggy Fenner dies in Sevenoaks aged 91". sevenoakschronicle.co.uk. 2 October 2014.

• "Times Guide to the House of Commons", Times Newspapers Limited, 1979 and 1997 editions.
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Peggy Fenner