Barbara Wootton, Baroness Wootton of Abinger

A criminologist and economist, Wootton was among the first four women to enter the House of Lords as life peers under the Life Peerages Act of 1958, and in 1967 became the first woman to sit on the Woolsack as a deputy speaker. Her work in the chamber and on official committees, including the 1968 Wootton Report on cannabis and the community service order she proposed, which became law in 1972, showed the expert contribution the new life peerages were meant to bring.