Xenia Noelle Field Administration Member of the Order of the British Empire, was a British county councillor, prison reformer, philanthropist, horticulturist and author
Background
Field was born on 25 December 1894 at Secunderabad, India, where her father Thomas Hermann Lowinsky was general manager of the Hyderabad (Deccan) Company coal mines. Her father was a keen gardener, who won a Royal Horticultural Society gold medal.
Education
Field was a pupil at Heathfield School, and then attended finishing school in Paris.
Career
On their return to England, the family lived at Tittenhurst Park in Berkshire. In World World War II, after a stint in the Women"s Royal Voluntary Service, she led the Women"s Organization for Salvage and Recovery for Herbert Morrison of the Ministry of Supply. She stood, unsuccessfully, for parliament, first at North Somerset in 1950 and then at Colchester in 1951.
She also sat as a magistrate, and became interested in prison reform.
She joined the breakaway Social Democratic Party in 1982, shortly after their formation. She died at Goldsborough Nursing Home, Ladbroke Road, Kensington, London on 24 January 1998, from a stroke.
She was 104.
Politics
Labour Party, Social Democratic Party.
Membership
With Morrison"s support, she was elected as a Labour member of London County Council in 1946, representing Paddington North electoral division. She was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (Administration Member of the Order of the British Empire) in 1958, and appeared as a "castaway" on the British Broadcasting Corporation Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 12 June 1967.