Mary Warnock

Mary Warnock (1924-2019) was an Independent Cross-Bench member of the House of Lords until June 2015. Educated at Winchester and Oxford. She taught philosophy at Oxford until 1985, when she became Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge. She retired in 1992. She was Chairman of two major Government Committees of Inquiry, the first (1974-1978) on Special Educational Needs, the second (1982-1984) on Human Fertilization and Embryology.

The reports of both were broadly accepted by Government, and incorporated in legislation. She is the author of a number of books, including Ethics since 1900 (1966); Existentialism (1970); Imagination (1976); An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Ethics (1998); Dishonest to God (2010).