Diana Maddock was educated at Shenstone Training College and Portsmouth Polytechnic (now the University of Portsmouth) and was a teacher of English as a foreign language until she started a family and got involved in politics in the mid-1970s.
Education and Early Maddock joined the Liberal Party in 1976, and was elected to Southampton City Council in 1984 until she was elected to parliament in 1993. During this time she was leader of the Liberal Democrat group on the council. She unsuccessfully contested Southampton Test at the 1992 general election, coming third.
She was made a life peer as Baroness Maddock, of Christchurch in the County of Dorset, in 1997.
The council was abolished in 2009 and the Borough was absorbed into the new unitary authority of Northumberland County Council. In the election for Berwick North ward of the new council, held in May 2008, her successor as the Liberal Democrat candidate was defeated.
Mission Diana Derbyshire (1945–1966)
Mrs Diana Maddock (1966–1997)
The Rt Honorary The Baroness Maddock (1997–2000)
The Rt Honorary
The Baroness Maddock, Mrs Beith (2000–2008)
The Rt Honorary
The Baroness Maddock, Lady Beith (since 2008).
She is a co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Carbon Monoxide Group. From 1998 to 2000 she was President of the Liberal Democrats.
51st United Kingdom Parliament]
She was elected as Member of Parliament for Christchurch at a by-election in 1993 that was caused by the death of Robert Adley, but lost the seat at the 1997 election to the Conservative candidate Christopher Chope. In 2005 she was elected a member of Berwick-upon-Tweed Borough Council, for Berwick North ward, as Councillor Diana Beith.
