Estelle Morris

Early life

Morris was born in Manchester into a political family. Her uncle, Alf Morris, was Labour MP for Manchester Wythenshawe (1964–97) and her father, Charles, was Labour MP for Manchester Openshaw (1963–83) and a Post Office union official who married Pauline Dunn. She attended Rack House primary school in Wythenshawe and Whalley Range High School in Whalley Range where she failed her English and French A-levels.

She is a graduate of the Coventry College of Education, where she gained a BEd in 1974. Morris remembered the long-serving Principal, Joan Dillon Browne (1912-2009), as "a pioneer in showing what women could achieve, long before it was fashionable to do so." Morris was a PE and Humanities teacher at the inner-city Sidney Stringer School in Coventry from 1974–92, becoming Head of Sixth Form Studies, and was a member of Warwick District Council from 1979 to 1991.

Parliamentary career

Morris was elected to Parliament in 1992 for Birmingham Yardley, gaining the seat from the Conservatives with only a wafer-thin majority of 162. She became a minister in the Department for Education and Employment in 1997 and was promoted to Secretary of State for Education and Skills in 2001. She was the first former comprehensive school teacher to have the position. She suddenly resigned her post in October 2002, explaining that she did not feel up to the job. She had made a commitment to the then Conservative Shadow Education Secretary, David Willetts to resign if the literacy and numeracy targets were not met. In interviews following her resignation she stated that she had felt happier and more effective as a junior Education minister.

She rejoined the Government in 2003 as Minister for the Arts in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and caused further comment when she admitted that she did not know much about contemporary art. She stepped down from the government and as a Member of Parliament at the 2005 general election.

On 13 May 2005 it was announced that she would be created a life peer, and she was conferred as Baroness Morris of Yardley, of Yardley in the County of West Midlands, on 14 June 2005.

Career outside Parliament

Between 2005 and 2009 she was Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sunderland. In May 2005, she was appointed chair of the Children’s Workforce Development Council. In September 2005, it was announced that she would succeed Lady Kennedy of The Shaws as President of the National Children's Bureau. Also, since September 2005 she has been a member of the council of Goldsmiths College and she is currently Chair of Council. Since 2007 she has been chair of the Executive Group of the Institute for Effective Education at the University of York.

Morris is the Chair of the medical charity, the Hughes Syndrome Foundation.

Awards

In 2004, Morris was awarded Honorary Doctorates in Arts from Leeds Metropolitan University and in Education from the University of Wolverhampton. She received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Bradford on 21 July 2005, and the University of Chester on 18 March 2011, on 18 July 2007 she was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Education by Manchester Metropolitan University in recognition of her contribution to education throughout a lifelong career as a dedicated teacher and politician with an education portfolio that has spanned ten years.