The Countess of Longford, better known as the author, Elizabeth Longford, has died. She was 96. Lady Longford was a renowned historian and biographer.
Born in 1906 and educated at Francis Holland School, Elizabeth Harman was a high-profile student at Oxford. After graduating, she taught for the Worker's Educational Association and lived in a council house near Stoke-on-Trent.
She fought the 1935 General Election as a Labour candidate for Cheltenham and was the Labour candidate for King's Norton, Birmingham from 1936 until she resigned in 1944.
She began her writing career when she was employed to write a column for the Daily Express in 1953 and later for The Sunday Times and the News of the World.
She went on to write many books including biographies of Queen Victoria, Wellington, Churchill, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and the Queen.
Her husband, the writer and penal reformer Frank Pakenham, later Lord Longford, whom she married in 1932, died last year.
Their eight children include the writers Lady Antonia Fraser, Rachel Billington and Thomas Pakenham.
