Theresa Stewart obituary

My mother, Theresa Stewart, who has died aged 90, was the Labour leader of Birmingham city council, the UK’s largest local authority, from 1993 to 1999. She was the first, and is still the only, woman to hold the post.

During that time, she moved the council away from spending on infrastructure and convention centres to a focus on social services and education. Under Theresa’s leadership, Birmingham was rated Britain’s best local authority in the 1998 Local Government Chronicle awards.

Birmingham hosted the G8 summit in 1998. Theresa met Tony Blair and Bill Clinton and had tea with Boris Yeltsin’s wife, Naina. However it was the photo of her meeting with Nelson Mandela on his visit to Birmingham in 1993 that had pride of place on her mantelpiece; and far more important to her than that was her contribution to the people of Birmingham.

Theresa was born in Leeds, the daughter of John Raisman, a solicitor, and his wife, Ray (nee Baker). John left the family, and the country, and was declared bankrupt, so Theresa was brought up in the Jewish community in Leeds by her mother, who worked as a secretary to support them. From Allerton high school, she won a scholarship to study maths at Oxford University, where she met John Stewart, whom she married in 1953. They moved with John’s job with the Coal Board to Edinburgh, London and Doncaster, before settling in Birmingham, where he joined the staff of Birmingham University, later becoming professor of local government.

Theresa organised the local CND branch in the early 1960s, was an advocate of comprehensive education, was a founder of the Birmingham Pregnancy Advisory Service (which became the British Pregnancy Advisory Service), and was heavily involved in Brook, a strong supporter of a woman’s right to choose and a leading campaigner in ensuring that family allowance (now child benefit) went to the mother.

A member of the Labour party for 72 years, she was first elected a councillor, in Birmingham’s Billesley ward, in 1970. Theresa saw her role as doing for poor people what lawyers do for rich people. She was an early friend to Birmingham’s gay community, helping them secure grants in the 70s at a time when few other councillors would. She served twice as chair of the council’s social services committee in the 80s.

Always a politician of principle, in 1988 Theresa was suspended from the council’s Labour group, along with 19 others, for opposing cuts to a local children’s home. Five years later she was elected, by her fellow Labour councillors, as leader. She retired as a councillor in 2002, having served a year as lord mayor of Birmingham, but was still, during the 2017 general election, out delivering leaflets for Labour.

Theresa is survived by John, four children, David, Lindsey, Selina and me, 10 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.