Audrey Callaghan, Baroness Callaghan of Cardiff
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The Right Honourable The Lady Callaghan of Cardiff |
|
|---|---|
| Spouse of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom | |
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In role 5 April 1976 – 4 May 1979 |
|
| Monarch | Elizabeth II |
| Prime Minister | James Callaghan |
| Preceded by | Mary Wilson |
| Succeeded by | Denis Thatcher |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Audrey Elizabeth Moulton 28 July 1915 Maidstone |
| Died | 15 March 2005 (aged 89) |
| Nationality | British |
| Spouse(s) | James Callaghan |
| Children |
Margaret Julie Michael |
| Religion | Baptist |
Audrey Elizabeth Callaghan, Baroness Callaghan of Cardiff (née Moulton; 28 July 1915 – 15 March 2005) was the wife of British Prime Minister James Callaghan and was herself a politician and campaigner and fundraiser for children's health and welfare.
She was born in Maidstone, Kent, where her father was a director of the Lead Wool Company, a tool company. She would chair Maidstone Labour Party and Fabian Society. She joined the Labour Party while in her teens and met her future husband in the early 1930s at the Baptist church Sunday school where they both worked, then at the Labour Party, but they did not marry until July 1938. They honeymooned in Paris and Chamonix and then returned to rent a house in Norwood.
Callaghan was educated at Maidstone Grammar School, then studied cookery at Battersea College of Domestic Science. She worked as a dietician at an antenatal clinic in Greenwich during World War II, a young mother herself. At the same time, she studied economics at a University of London extension course in Eltham, with Hugh Gaitskell as tutor. She made a special study of malnutrition in children and its remedies.
James had been elected a Member of Parliament for Cardiff in 1945 and she was at his side throughout his career. She was somewhat derided, described as "the Yorkshire Pudding", ostensibly for her skill in cooking, but also as a reference to her perceived poor dress sense and mildly disorganised appearance. She was ridiculed for her hobby of keeping pigs. She remained very private and shunned the limelight. However, she was engaged with her husband's jobs and was said to be instrumental in dissuading him from resignation after the 1967 devaluation of the pound.
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