Barbara Brooke, Baroness Brooke of Ystradfellte

Barbara Muriel Brooke, Baroness Brooke of Ystradfellte and Baroness Brooke of Cumnor DBE (14 January 1908–1 September 2000) was a British Conservative politician.

Brooke was the youngest of five children of Welsh minister, Rev. Alfred Augustus Mathews and his wife, Ethel Frances. She was educated at [http://www.qas.org.uk/ Queen Anne's School] in Caversham, Berkshire and Gloucester Training College of Domestic Science. On 22 April 1933, she married fellow Conservative, Henry Brooke and they had four children:

*Peter Leonard (b. 1934), later Baron Brooke of Sutton Mandeville.
*Henry (b. 1936), later Sir Henry.
*Honor Leslie (b. 1941), married Dr. Thomas Nigel Miller.
*Margaret Hilary Diana (b. 1944), married Dr. James Pulfer.

After having started a family, Brooke entered politics in 1948, when she became a member of Hampstead Council, a seat she held until 1965, whilst also having been Joint Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Party from 1954-64. She had also been active in a number of health organisations in her lifetime, including being a member of the North West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board from 1954-66, chair of The Queen's Institute of District Nursing from 1961-71 and the North London Hospital Management Committee from 1963-66. She was made a Dame in 1960. In 1966 she was awarded a life peerage as Baroness Brooke of Ystradfellte, of Ystradfellte in the County of Breconshire and two years later her husband was created Baron Brooke of Cumnor.