Diana Spearman

Diana Violet Constance Edith Spearman (22 February 1905 – 31 May 1991) was a British writer and conservative activist.

Early life

She was born in India to Sir Arthur Havelock James Doyle, Bt and Joyce Ethelreda Howard, who was a granddaughter of the 4th Marquess of Townshend[1] and the 17th Earl of Suffolk.[2] She studied at the London School of Economics from 1925 to 1931, where she was awarded the Social Science Certificate with distinction (1927) and the Academic Diploma in Psychology (1931). She also completed one year of the B Sc (Economics) degree in 1927–28.[3]

Politics

Spearman was appointed to the Conservative Research Department as their first female researcher, a post she held from 1934 until 1939 and again from 1949 until 1965.[3] She stood for Parliament twice, both times as the Conservative candidate. The first was for Poplar South in the 1935 general election,[4] where she lost to Labour's David Morgan Adams. However, she polled more than twice as many votes as the previous Conservative candidate.[1] She contested Kingston upon Hull Central in the 1945 general election but lost to Labour's Mark Hewitson.[5]

In 1948, Spearman accepted Friedrich Hayek's invitation to join the Mont Pelerin Society and she was also an active member of the Institute of Economic Affairs. In 1965, she founded the short-lived Longbow Group. With Roger Scruton and Michael Oakeshott, Spearman organised the Salisbury Group in the late 1970s, and in 1982 she co-founded The Salisbury Review with Scruton.[3]

Personal life

She married Alexander Spearman in 1928. The marriage was dissolved in 1951.[1]

Works
  • Modern Dictatorship (London: Jonathan Cape, 1939).
  • Democracy in England (London: Rockliff, 1957).
  • The Novel and Society (London: Routledge & Kegan, 1966).
  • The Animal Anthology (London: Baker, 1966).
  • A Time You Remember (Braunton: Merlin, 1989).

Notes
  1. 'Diana Spearman', The Times (8 June 1991), p. 14.
  2. Stéphane Porion, 'Diana Spearman's role within the post-war Conservative Party and in the ‘battle of ideas’ (1945–1965)', Women's History Review, Volume 28, Issue 2 (2019), pp. 258-259.
  3. Stéphane Porion, 'Diana Spearman's role within the post-war Conservative Party and in the ‘battle of ideas’ (1945–1965)', p. 259.
  4. 'Two By-Elections', The Times (9 September 1942), p. 2.
  5. 'Hull Central Held By Labour', The Times (10 August 1945), p. 4.
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