Preceded by New constituency Preceded by Robert Bean Preceded by Anne Kerr Name Peggy Fenner Party Conservative Party | Succeeded by Bob Marshall-Andrews Succeeded by Constituency abolished Succeeded by Robert Bean Role British Politician | |
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Died September 15, 2014, Sevenoaks, United Kingdom | ||
Dame Peggy Edith Fenner, DBE (12 November 1922 – 15 September 2014) was a British Conservative Party politician.
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Political career
After unsuccessfully fighting Newcastle-under-Lyme in 1966, Fenner was elected MP for Rochester and Chatham at the 1970 general election. She lost the seat at the October 1974 election to the Labour candidate Robert Bean, but regained it by defeating Bean at the 1979 election.
At the 1983 election the Rochester and Chatham seat was abolished and Fenner was elected MP for the new constituency of Medway. She continued to hold the seat for the next fourteen years, being re-elected at the 1987 and 1992 general elections, until she lost it at the 1997 election to Labour's Bob Marshall-Andrews. On the death of Baroness Jeger in 2007, Fenner became the oldest living woman to have served as an MP in the United Kingdom.
Peggy Fenner served as Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, with responsibility for food, from November 1972 to February 1974 under Edward Heath, and again from September 1981 to September 1986 under Margaret Thatcher. Upon leaving the government in 1986 she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Personal life
Fenner married architect Bernard Fenner and the couple had a daughter; both predeceased her. She died on 15 September 2014.