Irene Calvert, who died on May 19th aged 91, had a remarkable public career and was a pioneer of equal opportunities for women in Northern Ireland.
She was born in Belfast on February 10th, 1909 and christened Lilian Irene Mercer Earls, being the third child and second of three daughters of Prof John Earls, principal of the Belfast Municipal College of Technology and professor of mathematics at Queen's University, and his wife Mary (Minnie) Arnold. Irene, as she was always known, was educated at Methodist College, Belfast (1919-1925). Having contracted the "Spanish flu" and narrowly escaped death from pleural pneumonia at the age of nine she never took any public examinations while there. Her brother Arnold and her older sister May preceded her at Queen's and it was in 1926 that she was introduced at a meeting of the QUB Dramatic Society to her future husband, Raymond Calvert, who died in 1959. She entered Queen's in 1933 and studied economics and philosophy. She graduated in 1936.
On the outbreak of war the post of chief welfare officer for Northern Ireland in the Ministry of Home Affairs was advertised. Irene Calvert applied and after three months was told she had been appointed. Two major crises followed: the temporary resettlement in Northern Ireland of the Gibraltarians who were evacuated in 1940 and the bombing of Belfast in April 1941. Organising care for the evacuees gave her a unique insight into the prevalent social deprivation. It was as the result of these wartime experiences that she responded to the suggestion of her friends that she should go into politics as an economist and to "put the women's point of view". In 1944 a by-election occurred in one of the four Queen's University seats of the 52-member NI House of Commons (University representation at Westminister was not abolished until 1948 and at Stormont not until 1968). She stood (as she was to continue to do) as an "Independent Non-Party" candidate and, unsurprising for a by-election, the seat went to a unionist. However when the general election in Northern Ireland came at the end of the war in Europe in 1945 she stood again and was successful.
She was to encounter the familiar problem of independents - not having the support of a political party nor even (until after her re-election in the "Union Jack election" of 1949) being able to count on a colleague to second a motion. However, her knowledge of government and of the civil service enabled her to do much useful work behind the scenes. By 1951 she had decided that she did not wish to stand for re-election. Her term of office ended in 1953.
In 1952 she joined the Ulster Weaving Company as an economist. In this role she developed new markets for the company in supplying linen to hospitals and other large public institutions and was made a managing director in 1953. In 1956 she was chosen as a group chairman for the Duke of Edinburgh's Study Conference on industry, the members of which had been nominated for their special promise in their respective fields. In 1958 the Belfast City Chamber of Commerce (which she had joined in 1946) nominated her a member of Senate, its governing body. She served in this capacity for some 13 years as well as being a member of the Board of Curators responsible for university appointments. In 1965-1966 she was chosen as the first woman to serve as president of the Belfast City Chamber of Commerce. It was also at this period that she was active in the Irish Association for Economic, Social and Cultural Relations, an independent group set up to promote better relations between North and South, of which she was for a time secretary.
In 1970 she left to take up the post of head of households to Miss Doris Duke, the millionaire recluse, based at her home in New Jersey. It rapidly became clear, however, that Miss Duke did not really want a head of households and after three months she resigned, her main souvenir being an injury to one leg where she had been bitten by one of Miss Duke's untrained dogs.
In retirement in Dublin, she kept in close touch with her family but resisted any suggestion from them that she should write her memoirs. She worked for the Irish Labour Party in the Dun Laoghaire constituency until she was over 80. She also kept up her interests in music, poetry and modern Irish art. She is survived by a son, four grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.
Irene Calvert: born 1909; died, May 2000
