Baroness Williams of Crosby, the former Labour cabinet minister who broke away to form the Social Democratic Party, has died aged 90.
Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, paid tribute to her as a “true trailblazer” who had inspired millions.
As Shirley Williams, she served in the governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan in the 1970s, rising to become education secretary.
In 1981, having become disillusioned with Labour’s drift to the left under Michael Foot, she was one of the original “Gang of Four” who left the party to form the SDP.
Davey said: “I feel privileged to have known her, listened to her and worked with her. Like so many others, I will miss her terribly.”
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Williams was born on July 27, 1930, to the prominent feminist Vera Brittain, author of Testament of Youth, and Sir George Catlin, a teacher of political science and unsuccessful Labour candidate, who used to wheel her to Labour meetings in a pram.
She entered parliament as MP for Hitchin in 1964 and held junior office during most of Wilson’s first administration. She then climbed through the ranks of the Wilson and Callaghan cabinets of 1974 to 1979 first as prices and consumer protection secretary, then as paymaster-general and finally education secretary.
She is largely remembered for her period as education secretary in the years before Margaret Thatcher swept to power, and is cited as the architect of the comprehensive system.
After Thatcher’s arrival at No 10 and her own defeat in 1979, Williams began to have increasing doubts and disillusionment about the way Labour was lurching to the left. Finally, along with William Rodgers, David Owen and Roy Jenkins, she helped to form the SDP.
The new party claimed “unstoppable momentum” in its public support but eventually collapsed amid recriminations and merged with the Liberal Party which, through a series of name changes, finally became the Liberal Democrats.
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At one time, there was serious talk of Williams becoming Britain’s first female prime minister. She herself outwardly showed no ambition in this direction and she was anyway viewed, in political terms, more as a perpetual lieutenant rather than a general.
She became a life peer in 1993 and sat in the House of Lords as a Liberal Democrat and continued to remain deeply immersed in the political scene. In the autumn of 2004 she retired as Liberal Democrat leader in the Lords.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, said: “She was a trailblazer for women and education, one of the first women to sit in Cabinet and the only female member of the ‘Gang of Four’. Without doubt, she was one of a kind, and a character we all shall miss.”