Angela Mason

Angela Mason OBE (born 9 August, 1944) is a British activist, the third director of the UK-based LGBT lobbying organisation Stonewall 1992 - 2002. She is currently the Chair of the Fawcett Society, a UK women's rights campaigning organisation [http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/] .

Born Angela Weir in High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, she grew up on the Isle of Sheppey and was educated at Basingstoke High School, Bedford College, University of London, and the London School of Economics.

In 1971, she married scriptwriter William Randolph Mason whom she divorced in 1980. The same year, Mason also met writer and academic Elizabeth Wilson, a co-activist in the Gay Liberation Front, who was to become her life partner. Mason was an activist in the trade union and radical movements. In 1971 she was falsely accused of the bomb plot against Conservative Party officials that was attributed to the Angry Brigade terrorist group. She was acquitted of all charges the following year.

Mason became a lecturer at the LSE then the Principal Solicitor for the London Borough of Camden. In 1984, she gave birth to a daughter conceived via artificial insemination. She became a member of Stonewall in 1989, becoming its director in 1992.

From 2003 to 2007 she was the director of the UK government's Women and Equality Unit, now the Government Equalities Office. Mason has also been a member of the Equal Opportunities Commission and an advisor to the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. She was awarded the OBE in 1999.