Who is Frank Field: Biography, Career, Net Worth & More

Frank Field, Baron Field of Birkenhead, CH, PC, DL, was a British politician who represented Birkenhead as an MP for 40 years, from 1979 to 2019.

He first served as a Labour MP until August 2018, at which point he became an Independent. He established the Birkenhead Social Justice Party in 2019 and ran as its lone candidate in the election but to no avail.

He received a life peerage in 2020 after leaving the House of Commons, and he served as a crossbencher in the House of Lords.

Summary of Frank Field's Biography

Full name: Frank Ernest Field
Date of birth: July 16, 1942
Place of birth: Edmonton, London, United Kingdom
Death Date: April 23, 2024

Frank Field Biography

From July 1942 to April 23, 2024, Frank Field, Baron Field of Birkenhead, CH, PC, DL, was a British politician who represented Birkenhead as an MP for 40 years, from 1979 to 2019. He first served as a Labour MP until August 2018, at which point he became an Independent.

He established the Birkenhead Social Justice Party in 2019 and ran as its lone candidate in the election, but to no avail. He received a life peerage in 2020 after leaving the House of Commons, and he served as a crossbencher in the House of Lords.

Field worked for Tony Blair’s administration as the Minister of Welfare Reform from 1997 to 1998. After disagreements with the Prime Minister, Field quit, and as a backbencher, he quickly rose to prominence as one of the Labour government’s most outspoken opponents.

In June 2015, Field was chosen to chair the Work and Pensions Select Committee. In the general election of 2017, he was re-elected without opposition. Due to antisemitism inside the party and a “culture of intolerance, nastiness, and intimidation” in certain areas of the party, including his seat, Field resigned as Labour whip in August 2018.

A month before to his resignation, Field’s constituency party held a vote of no confidence in him after he supported the government in Brexit votes. The Labour National Executive Committee claimed that Field’s resignation as whip had also caused him to leave the party’s general membership, a claim Field denied.

Field, the second of three sons, was born in Edmonton, Middlesex, on July 16, 1942. His mother worked as a primary school welfare worker at Belmont Primary School in Chiswick, while his father worked as a laborer at the Morgan Crucible Company’s factory in Battersea. Conservatives “who believed in character and pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps” were his parents.

Field attended Hammersmith’s St. Clement Danes Grammar School before attending the University of Hull to study economics. He had once been a Conservative Party member, but he quit the party in 1960 because he opposed South Africa’s apartheid. and became a Labour Party member. He started teaching further education in Southwark and Hammersmith in 1964.

Field represented Turnham Green as a Labour councilor on the Hounslow London Borough Council from 1964 until his seat was eliminated in 1968. From 1969 to 1979, he served as the director of the Child Poverty Action Group, where he hired Virginia Bottomley (now Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone) to do a long-term study on the earnings and expenses of families living below the poverty line. From 1974 to 1980, he oversaw the Low Pay Unit.

In 1997, he took the oath of office and joined the Privy Council. In exchange, he was bestowed with the honorific prefix “The Right Honorable” and the post-nominal letter “PC” for life upon his ennoblement. In October 2011, he was appointed to the position of deputy lieutenant for Merseyside County. He was placed on the retired list at the age of 75. He was granted the Post Nominal Letters “DL” for Life as a result.

Field received the Grassroot Diplomat Initiative award in March 2015 for her role in the co-founding of the environmental nonprofit Cool Earth, which collaborates with indigenous communities to stop the destruction of rainforests as a bottom-up approach to an aging issue. Liverpool John Moores University granted him an honorary fellowship on July 12, 2016.

The Archbishop of Canterbury gave him the Langton Award for Community Service in 2017 “for sustained and outstanding commitment to social welfare.” Field received a nomination in the 2019 Dissolution Honors for a life peerage. On September 11, 2020, he was made Baron Field of Birkenhead, in the County of Merseyside.

As a result of his political and public service, Field was named a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in the 2022 New Year’s Honours. On February 16, 2022, Field received the Borough of Wirral’s freedom. In addition, he was a Companion of St. George’s Guild.

In addition to being a member of the Church of England General Synod, Field was also a prominent member of the Church of England and the previous chairman of the Churches Conservation Trust. Field examines what could take the place of the “largely beneficial effect” of evangelical Christianity in his book Neighbours From Hell, which is where his political and theological ideas are most evident.

Frank Field was over the Cathedral Fabrics Commission for England, the national organization in charge of maintaining, repairing, and developing cathedrals, from 2005 to 2015. He was named chairman of the 2011 King James Bible Trust in 2007. The King James Bible Trust was founded to commemorate the Bible’s 400th anniversary. In addition, he served as the National Churches Trust’s vice president.

Field had described himself as “incomplete” since he was single, but critic Jay Rayner pointed out in a 2006 piece in T he Observer that many in his social circle said he had “a full life outside politics.” He has resided in a postwar building 0.5 miles from the House of Commons since 1979. His book Politics, Poverty and Belief, which he co-wrote with Rachel Griffiths and Brian Griffiths, Thatcher’s former chief policy adviser, was released in February 2023.

In March 2015, Field collapsed during a meeting and was sent to the hospital. Field declared on October 22, 2021, that he had been in a hospice for some time and was terminally sick. During a debate on the Assisted Dying Bill in the House of Lords, Baroness Meacher read out a statement he had made, which he endorsed.

Field said he had had prostate cancer for ten years and that it had progressed to his jaw at the time of the interview in January 2023 in an interview with The Guardian. He said, “It’s a strange experience taking so long to die.” Frank Field passed away at the age of 81 on April 23, 2024.

Frank Field Nationality

Frank Field is a British national

Frank Field Net Worth

The net worth of Frank Field isn’t known but as a politician, we believe he made some money before taking his last breath.

Where is Frank Field from?

Frank Field is a British from Edmonton a town in north London, England within the London Borough of Enfield, a local government district of Greater London. The northern part of the town is known as Lower Edmonton or Edmonton Green, and the southern part as Upper Edmonton.

How old is Frank Field?

Born on 16 July 1942, and died on 23 April 2024, Frank Field was 81 years old

Frank Field Height & Weight

The height and weight of Frank Field aren’t known

Frank Field Career

He was given the task of “thinking the unthinkable” about social security by Tony Blair in 1997. He had become too much of a maverick and had strained relations with the New Labour hierarchy in less than a year. However, left-wingers also never warmed up to him, doubting his conviction that human behavior and poverty were related.

Field was driven out the party after he continued to assist David Cameron on social policy, back Brexit, and criticize Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. What did you expect from a man whose close personal pals were Enoch Powell and Margaret Thatcher, some whispered within the Labour movement?

Field attended the University of Hull to study economics and later worked as a further education teacher in south London.

In addition to running for office in Parliament, Field spent more than ten years advocating on behalf of the most vulnerable members of society as director of the Child Poverty Action Group and the Low Pay Unit.

He was chosen to serve in the Labour Party’s safe seat of Birkenhead in 1979, a position he kept for the following forty years. Field’s election presented him with the opportunity to meet Enoch Powell, a politician he had always respected.

Powell was sent into the political wilderness after making his well-known “Rivers of Blood” speech on immigration ten years prior.

However, Field believed that Powell had made “almost the only major political error” in this matter. Over conversations about Christian doctrine, the youthful Labour MP and the seasoned Tory warhorse became close.

Field was appointed as an opposition spokesman on education by Michael Foot in 1980, but he quickly went back to the back benches. In Birkenhead, he repelled left-wing attempts to unseat him, and Neil Kinnock offered him another opportunity on the front benches. It was hardly a year long.

Rather, Field took over as chairman of the Social Security Select Committee, using his skills as a “one-man think tank” and activist to take aim at Margaret Thatcher’s administration.

However, he had a legendary rapport with the Iron Lady on a personal level. Field felt he understood how to handle her because they had met while he was pressing her on behalf of his clients.

Field had moved away from any form of party orthodoxy after serving as a Labour MP for almost 40 years.

He was one of the few members of his parliamentary party to advocate for Brexit, claiming that the EU supported a paradigm of economics that encouraged low salaries. Furthermore, when he said that governments should no longer provide financial incentives as a means of escaping poverty, he violated the deeply held convictions of a large number of people in his party.

Field lost his seat in Birkenhead after criticizing Corbyn for not doing enough to combat antisemitism. Though he continued to voluntarily pay his Labour membership due, he ran as an independent in the 2019 general election. He became a crossbencher in the House of Lords following the inevitable defeat.

However, Baron Field of Birkenhead declared on October 22, 2021, that he was terminally sick and had just been in a hospice. He will be known for pursuing his political agenda despite the negative effects on his professional standing.

Frank Field Marital Status

Although Frank Field, who was born and raised in Edmonton, North London, never got married or had kids, his acquaintances said he had a “full life outside of politics”.

He was a recluse in both life and politics, and he once revealed to the Guardian that he felt a little “incomplete” since he had never been in a relationship.

Frank Field Family & Siblings

Frank Field, the second of three sons, was born in Edmonton, Middlesex, on July 16, 1942. His mother worked as a primary school welfare worker at Belmont Primary School in Chiswick, while his father worked as a laborer at the Morgan Crucible Company’s factory in Battersea.