Marcia Williams

Marcia Matilda Williams, Baroness Falkender, CBE (née Field; 10 March 1932 – 6 February 2019<ref name=telegraph>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=bbc>Template:Cite news</ref>), also known as Marcia Falkender, was the private secretary for, and then the political secretary and head of political office to, UK Labour prime minister Harold Wilson.

Marcia Wiliiams was known as Harold Wilson's closest confidant. Clever and sharp-witted, she had more power than most cabinet ministers, but her tirades caused tensions within Number 10. As a result, she was a deeply divisive figure. There was also speculation that Wilson had an affair with her, but if that had happened it appears to have been over long before Wilson came to power.<ref>Linda McDougall, Marcia Williams. The Life and Times of Baroness Falkender. Biteback Publishing, London, 2023, 19-23. Valentine Low, Power and the Palace. The Inside Story of the Monarchy and 10 Downing Street. Headline Press, 2025, 154. ISBN: {{978 1 0354 18881 7}}.</ref>

Background

Marcia Mathilda Field was born at Watson Road, Long Buckby, Northampshire as the third and youngest child of Harry Field (1903-1972) en his wife Dorothy Mathilda Falkender, née Cowley (1902-1978). Harry Field was a brick maker. Marcia was educated at Northampton High School as a scholarship girl. She developed during her youth strong political commitments as a rejection of the conservatism of her parents. Marcia identified herself with the have-nots in her history books as well as with the less well-off children in her class and adopted socialism. In her late teens, this became a serious commitment, linked to plans for a career. In the sixth form, she set her sights on becoming the assistant to a Labour MP, in order to work in Parliament. She brushed aside her teachers’ suggestions that she should try for Oxford or Manchester University. Instead, she read history at Queen Mary College, London, because of its relative proximity to Westminster. While at Queen Mary she became president of the Labour Club. She fell in love with George Edmund Charles (Ed) Williams. Ed Williams was president of the Conservative Club. After his study he became an aeronautical engineer. They married in West Haddon, Northamptonshire, on 1 December 1955.<ref>Gavin Hyman, "Williams [née Field], Marcia Matilda, Baroness Falkender (1932–2019)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 13 April 2023. Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson, HarperCollinsPublishers,1992,199-200.</ref>

There is an unconfirmed rumour that her mother was an illegitimate daughter of King Edward VII. It is supposed the story was invented to hide the humble status of the Williams family.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It is said Queen Elizabeth II was reluctant to meet Marcia Williams because of this story.<ref>Valentine Low, Power and the Palace. The Inside Story of the Monarchy and 10 Downing Street. Headline Press, 2025, 155.</ref>

Early career and serving Harold Wilson

After graduation at Queen Mary College Marcia Field took a secretarial course at St Godric’s Secretarial College, Hampstead. In 1955 she was appointed as a secretary to the Labour Party general secretary, Morgan Phillips. Within one year became Marcia became repelled by the right-wing trades union atmosphere at Transport House, and secretly became a sympathizer of Bevanism. An escape route to more congenial political company came in the person of Harold Wilson. Wilson, a prominent Bevanite, was looking for a secretary. She applied and was appointed in 1956. It was a post she retained for the rest of her professional life. Her position became more various and important while Wilson proceeded to be leader of the Labour Party and eventually prime minister. The relationship was said to be one of the most famous, and mysterious, partnerships, of modern political history.<ref>Gavin Hyman, "Williams [née Field], Marcia Matilda, Baroness Falkender (1932–2019)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 13 April 2023. Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson, HarperCollinsPublishers,1992, 199. ISBN 987654321.</ref>

Harold Wilson was Member of Parliament for Huyton. Marcia Williams became his secretary in 1956. This position she retained until 1964. In October 1964 Wilson became Prime Minister; Marcia Williams rose to be his political secretary and head of the political office. Wilson was in office as Prime Minister from 1964 until 1970 and again from 1974 to 1976.<ref>Roy Jenkins, "Wilson, (James) Harold, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx (1916–1995)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 23 September 2004, revised version 13 March 2025. Gavin Hyman, "Williams [née Field], Marcia Matilda, Baroness Falkender (1932–2019)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 13 April 2023.</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Harold Wilson was also leader of the Labour Party. Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell died suddenly in January 1963, Wilson won the subsequent leadership election to replace him, becoming Leader of the Opposition. According to Harold Wilson, Marcia Williams 'greatly assisted' him in all this work on party organization as member of the staff of Morgan Philips. 'The following year she joined me as my full-time political secretary to deal with my enormous mailbag. She worked first out of my office at Montague Meyer and stayed with me through all the vicissitudes of the following twenty years.'<ref>Harold Wilson, The Making of a Prime Minister 1916-64. Weidenfeld and Nicolson and Michael Joseph, 1986, 152. ISBN 0 7181 2775 7.</ref>

Marcia Williams started her career as a conventional secretary. She kept Wilson’s diary, dealt with his correspondence, typed his speeches, and organized and accompanied him on his overseas trips. As time went on, and her personal relationship with Harold Wilson deepened, she also began assuming other, more significant roles. According to her biographer in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Marcia William became Wilson's inspiration and muse. For instance, at the Labour Party conference of 1963, it was Marcia Williams who inspired and pushed Wilson to deliver the ‘white heat of technology’ speech. This speech was widely regarded as an important staging post on Labour’s path to its general election victory the following year. Marcia frequently dispensed invaluable advice and was thought by many to have ‘one of the sharpest political brains in the country’.<ref>Gavin Hyman, "Williams [née Field], Marcia Matilda, Baroness Falkender (1932–2019)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 13 April 2023. Reference quotation: Daily Mirror, 24 May 1974. Wilson's own version: Harold Wilson, The Making of a Prime Minister 1916-64. Weidenfeld and Nicolson and Michael Joseph, 1986, 196-198.</ref>

File:Lord Harold Wilson Allan Warren.jpg

Lord Harold Wilson, by Allan Warren - 1986

In 1964, Wilson became Prime Minister. Marcia Williams had made herself so indispensable that there was no question of her being removed or sidelined. This initially caused some tension because the civil service already provided the Prime Minister with a principal private secretary. Marcia Williams was given the title ‘personal political secretary’. Behind the cabinet room in 10 Downing Street, she had a little office for herself. According to Wilson's biographer, Ben Pimlott, Marcia Williams had a very clear sense of her own role. She saw herself as the new Prime Minister's political arm: keeping him in touch with the Labour party, Parliament and the country. The machinery of Downing Street threatened to overwhelm Wilson with the establishment business of being Prime Minister. Being a Prime Minister took up eighty percent of Wilson's time and just twenty percent for his leadership of the Labour party. The civil service wanted Wilson to get on with running the country. However, Williams was determined not to let him forget who it was that made it possible for him to do it. It was said that ‘she saw herself as his socialist conscience’.<ref>Gavin Hyman, "Williams [née Field], Marcia Matilda, Baroness Falkender (1932–2019)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 13 April 2023. Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson, HarperCollinsPublishers, 1992, 341-345.</ref> After some conflicts within the service of Downing Street, Marcia secured her niche. She did not rule in No. 10, but she was unquestionably powerful. Her significance remained what it always had been: Wilson depended on her, practically, psychologically and also intellectually. As before, she kept Wilson's political files, typed his speeches, paid private bills, and since 1964 she increasingly did his constituency work as well. She supervised Wilson's secretarial staff in the morning in Downing Street. In the afternoon she worked in the Prime Minister's Office in the Houses of Parliament. According to Ben Pimlott, Wilson's biographer, these secretarial activities were merely the scaffolding. Her important role was to be the person who thought about Wilson's needs and cared about his well-being more than anybody else outside his family. Unlike other staff, civil service or political, her dedication did not depend on her official position. 'She has stuck by me though thick and thin', Harold Wilson told a colleague when they were abroad together in the company of Marcia Williams. 'If I get thrown out, she's still going to be my most loyal supporter. Marcia Williams was part of Wilson's protective shield towards other Labour politicians.<ref>Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson, HarperCollinsPublishers,1992, 344.</ref>

Ms. Williams served Wilson as a personal and political confidante while having few close personal friends in the Cabinet. Wilson completely trusted her. Wilson used her to test out his policy ideas, to share his fears of political threats, to confide his thoughts on cabinet reshuffles and consulting her on how to handle the party. Their relationship was peculiarly intense. Williams said it was because she was the only one who told him exactly what she thought. Wilson said it was because she was the only one whose loyalty was undoubted.<ref>Gavin Hyman, "Williams [née Field], Marcia Matilda, Baroness Falkender (1932–2019)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 13 April 2023. Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson, HarperCollinsPublishers,1992, 523. Philip Ziegler, Wilson, The Authorised Life of Lord Wilson of Rieyaulx. HarperCollinsPublishers, 1995, 118-122, 182. ISBN 9780006375043.</ref>

As a result of closeness to Harold Wilson, Ms. Williams was controversial. However, it was also because of her behaviour. According to Ben Pimlott, Marcia Williams used to shout out all her happiness and frustrations. Officials were startled, not just by the lack of deference contained in the shouting, but also by the apparent reversal of roles. The Prime Minister seemed to seeking his assistant's approval, rather than the other way round. She exercised considerable control, seemingly because Harold Wilson wanted her to be happy. As she saw herself as his socialist conscience, who needed him to say what he couldn't say himself - he had to speak in soft terms because of his role as Prime Minister. In contrast to that, Marcia had the habit of saying things loudly and angrily enough to grab his attention. She had both enemies in personal and professional circles. In the tabloid press Marcia Williams became an increasingly controversial figure.<ref>Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson, HarperCollinsPublishers,1992, 344-345.</ref>

Enemies within Downing Street

Linda MacDougall made a statement in her book on Marcia Williams. Marcia's story is dominated by two former assistents of Harold Wilson: Bernhard Donoughue and Joe Haines. Both despised Marcia Williams.<ref>Linda McDougall, Marcia Williams. The Life and Times of Baroness Falkender. Biteback Publishing, London, 2023, 236-237.</ref>

Bernard Donoughue, Baron Donoughue wrote a nightly diary which he published much later, in 2005: Downing Street Diary. With Harold Wilson in No. 10.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Donoughue was in 1974 appointed as Wilson's newly formed policy research unit. Donoughue described Marcia Williams as constantly lively and a bright personality, but also a cynically realistic about Harold Wilson. She knew all his faults, but seemed always loyal and affectionate towards Wilson. Donoughue's verdict on Marcia Williams: always constructive, looking for decisions, handling people with rather brutal honesty, but always getting a solution. A much better politician than Harold Wilson and most other MP's, but sometimes very heavy on fools. According to Donoughue's diary notes Marcia Williams totally lacked deference to Harold Wilson. She simply told him the brutal truth as she saw it. She was a pushing woman.<ref>Linda McDougall, Marcia Williams. The Life and Times of Baroness Falkender. Biteback Publishing, London, 2023, 115-117. Including quotations from Donoughue's book.</ref>

Joe Haines (journalist), Wilson's former press secretary, wrote Glimmers of Twilight: Harold Wilson in Decline. In this memoir he portrayed Marcia as dangerous and difficult; as the woman who was responsible for the destruction of Harold Wilson's legacy. Joe Haines joined Mirror Group Newspapers when he left Downing Street. Joe Haines blamed Marcia Williams: Harold Wilson's decline was the result of 'the tantrums, tirades and tyranny of Marcia Williams.' Haines was vitriolic about Marcia's personality and the way he felt she dominated Harold Wilson.<ref>Linda McDougall, Marcia Williams. The Life and Times of Baroness Falkender. Biteback Publishing, London, 2023, 114.</ref> After her death he paid a grim tribute to the woman with her 'lethal technique' to show people their place. 'She was officially described as his political secretary. For the political part she was great. As a secretary she was lousy.'<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Philip Ziegler, Wilson's authorized biographer, stated it is difficult to overestimate the importance of Marcia Williams in Wilson's political career. In a sense Marcia Williams was his political wife. Wilson wanted to discuss politics or to gossip about politicians: the nuts and bolts of who would vote for whom, how X could be persuaded to do this, Y prevented from doing that. If his wife Mary had wanted it, her husband would have been happy for her to fill the role, but she hated the political world. Mary Wilson was concerned with political issues, was prepared to smile loyally at election times, to rejoice in his triumphs and lament at his disasters. However, endless late-night debate about the state of the party was not for her. Wilson therefore needed a supplementary, a political wife. His specifications for such an adjunct were unusual. Perhaps as a legacy of his childhood, Wilson relished assertive and bullying women. Mary Wilson was strong but tranquil. Mary abhorred rows and regarded the making of scenes in public as vulgar and distasteful. In contrast, Marcia Williams had an explosive temper was explosive and was in possession of a wayward and sometimes non-existent self-control. Wilson viewed her excesses with mingled tolerance and admiration. She was prepared to tell other people the things Wilson would have liked to have told them himself but could not bring himself to say aloud. He was frightened of her, because she was formidable in her ferocity - but frightened with the delighted glee of one to whom a frisson of terror adds savour to a relationship. Those who marvelled at the patience with which Wilson endured Marcia's threats and insults missed the point: it was those very threats and insults which enhanced her value in his eyes. Wilson was not a weak man, he was perfectly capable of ignoring Marcia's objurgations and continuing along his chosen route indifferent to her protests. Often he did so. However, he was incapable, chose to be incapable, of shutting her up and cutting off the lava flow of protest in midstream. Largely this was because he had confidence in Marcia's loyalty and dedication. She might sometimes be obstreperous, perverse, but she was on his side.<ref>Philip Ziegler, Wilson, The Authorised Life of Lord Wilson of Rieyaulx. HarperCollinsPublishers, 1995, 118-122, 182. ISBN 9780006375043.</ref>

Marcia Williams and the British Monarchy

File:Queen Elizabeth II official portrait for 1959 tour (retouched) (cropped) (3-to-4 aspect ratio).jpg

Official portrait of Queen Elizabeth II before the start of her 1959 tour, wearing the Vladimir Tiara, the Queen Victoria Jubilee Necklace, the blue Garter Riband, Badge and Garter Star and the Royal Family Orders of King George V and King George VI. December 1958, Donald McKague.

The arrival of Harold Wilson, after his election to Prime Minister in October 1964, at Buckingham Palace for the tradional "kissing hands" with the monarch was different from his forerunners. Two cars in stead of one arrived in the palace forecourt. Harold Wilson came not alone or simply with his wife, but was accompanied with his wife Mary, his father, his two sons and Marcia Williams. The group sat on a sofa in the equerry's room and where given sherry while Wilson went in to kiss hands - as Harold Wilson pointed out, by this time the new Prime Ministers no longer had to kiss the hand of Queen Elizabeth II literally, but the expression survives to the present day. Wilson's family and Marcia Williams had to wait in another room and were entertained by some palace officials. Marcia Williams was not impressed. The anonymous palace officials all looked exactly the same. As far she could recall in 1972, the conversation centred on horses. However, Marcia's knowledge of them was minimal and the Wilson's family less. It struck her by the time as an ironic beginning to the white-hot technological revolution which Harold Wilson had promised during his election campaign and the Government that was to mastermind that revolution.<ref>Valentine Low, Valentine Low, Power and the Palace. The Inside Story of the Monarchy and 10 Downing Street. Headline Press, 2025, 127-128. Sarah Bradford, Elizabeth. A Biography of Her Majesty the Queen, Penquin books, revised edition 2002, 311. Reference note to: Marcia Falkender, Inside Number 10, 1972, 17.</ref>

Marcia Williams was deeply suspicious of the palace, but not for the usual Labour reasons. Bernard Donoughue, who was often at odds with Williams, described in his diary how she blamed the Queen of getting a favourable financial deal. Joe Haines, Wilson press secreary, told Donoughue how Williams was furious and jealous that Donoughue had been to the palace and not her. She blamed him for the way in which the Civil List increase was slipped through Cabinet. Marcia thought it was linked with his going to the palace. She suspected a plot whereby he acted as the Queen’s agent to persuade the Prime Minister to agree to her increase in grant.<ref>Valentine Low, Power and the Palace. The Inside Story of the Monarchy and 10 Downing Street. Headline Press, 2025, 155. Reference note: Donoughue, Downing Street Diary: With Harold Wilson in No. 10. Jonathan Cape, 2005, 310.</ref>

The aversion went deep. When Marcia William got an Order of the British Empire, a CBE, in 1970, she was not prepared to Buckingham Palace for the investiture. The reason was she suspected that the Queen was a Tory. When the palace sent the insignia to her, she complained that it arrived in a brown paper parcel. Her feelings didn’t become softer in time. In 1975 she sat next to Martin Charteris, Baron Charteris of Amisfield, the private secretary of Queen Elizabeth II. She started the conversation with ‘I suppose you realise I loathe all you stand for?’<ref>Valentine Low, Power and the Palace. The Inside Story of the Monarchy and 10 Downing Street. Headline Press, 2025, 155. Reference note: Joe Haines, The Politics of Power, Coronet, 1977, 185-186.</ref>

Controversies

The first important controversy occurred in February 1974.This was shortly after Wilson became prime minister for the second time. It became known as the ‘land deals’ affair. It involved a series of business dealings primarily undertaken by Williams’s brother, Tony Field. However, Marcia Williams and other members of her family held positions in the company involved. The media suspected corrupt land speculation, involving documents apparently signed by Wilson himself. But it quickly became evident that both the documents and his signature were forged. Almost as an act of public loyalty, signalling his confidence in his assistent, Wilson shortly afterwards recommended her for a life peerage.<ref name=":0">Gavin Hyman, "Williams [née Field], Marcia Matilda, Baroness Falkender (1932–2019)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 13 April 2023. Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson, HarperCollinsPublishers,1992, 625-631. Linda McDougall, Marcia Williams. The Life and Times of Baroness Falkender. Biteback Publishing, London, 2023, 167-183.</ref>

The second controversy occurred after Wilson’s retirement as prime minister in March 1976. It centred on Wilson’s resignation honours list. Wilson was the first prime minister since Baldwin in 1937 to retire voluntarily and even unnecessarily. His retirement was disfigured by his, at best, eccentric resignation honours list, which gave peerages or knighthoods to some adventurous business gentlemen, several of whom were close neither to him nor to the Labour Party. As a result there was some doubts who was the real compiler of the list. Joe Haines accused Marcia Williams, Lady Falkender. The list was in her own hand on the lavender-coloured notepaper she often used. According to Haines it was that list, with a few deletions and a few additions in the Prime Minister's hand, which the principal private secretary used to prepare the submission to the Queen. Apart from the paper which was used, it was evident that some of the honorands were personally better known to Falkender than to Wilson. Donoughue's diary recorded Wilson telling one of his staff that he had just quarrelled with Falkender, who was demanding "peerages for friends". Donoughue's diary: 'that gal Marcia insisted on it'. Both academic biographers of Wilson - Philip Ziegler and Ben Pimlott - asserted that there was no financial impropriety in the compilation of the list. Pimlott observed in his biography of Wilson that political secretaries often write down lists at the instructions of their employers, and that in this case the fact that the list was pink does not itself prove anything. Philip Ziegler, Wilson's authorized biographer, concluded the true authorship of the list will never finally be established. As on previous occasions, Wilson loyally defended Marcia, and publicly claimed the list as his own. A bad taste lingered after the affair had fizzled out, making it hard for Harold Wilson to lead the respected-elder-statesman life he had envisaged.<ref>Gavin Hyman, "Williams [née Field], Marcia Matilda, Baroness Falkender (1932–2019)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 13 April 2023. Roy Jenkins, "Wilson, (James) Harold, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx (1916–1995)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 23 September 2004, revised version 13 March 2025. Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson, HarperCollinsPublishers,1992, 686-690. Ziegler, 494-498. Linda McDougall, Marcia Williams. The Life and Times of Baroness Falkender. Biteback Publishing, London, 2023, 203-211.</ref><ref>P 704 & 705 Downing Street Diary with Harold Wilson in No. 10 by Bernard Donoughue, Pimlico books 2005</ref><ref name="baroness-falkender">Template:Cite news</ref>

Also Falkender's reputation was damaged. The controversary around the honour list didn't die because Joe Haines kept publishing and his work was used for a BBC-drama, The Lavender List. Marcia Williams, Lady Falkender sued successfully the BBC. In 2018 she decided it was time to tell the press her version of the events. According to her the list was compiled on Wilson's last day in Downing Street: 'He put a pad in front of me of the pink paper that was stock paper back then and asked me to write out the names. My typewriter had been packed away so I wrote them down by hand. It really didn't feel momentous.'<ref>Template:Cite news Template:Subscription required</ref><ref>Linda McDougall, Marcia Williams. The Life and Times of Baroness Falkender. Biteback Publishing, London, 2023, 256. The original interview was with the Mail on Sunday.</ref>

Questions were repeatedly raised in the press at the time about the propriety of her many commercial dealings. However, both Wilson and Williams successfully sued many London newspapers for libel.<ref>Auberon Waugh, Four crowded years: the diaries of Auberon Waugh, 1972–1976, Private Eye, 1976. Footnote 2 under entry for Wednesday, 14 April 1974</ref> After Wilson's (voluntary) resignation a lot of publications appeared with several accusations towards Harold Wilson, but also concerning Marcia Williams. Several were fought out in court or at the Royal Commission on the Press.<ref>Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson, HarperCollinsPublishers,1992, 681-723.</ref>

After Downing Street

Margaret Thatcher

In the course of the election campaign of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 the press reported that Harold Wilson's wife, Mary Wilson, was thinking of voting for Thatcher. Behind the scenes Marcia Williams, Lady Falkender, was working with Gordon Reece and Lord McAlpine, two Conservative Party advisers who were close to Margaret Thatcher, to aid the party's election to office. According to Charles Moore, Thatcher's biographer, she had confided to McAlpine, who was a friend, that she admired Margaret Thatcher and would like to help her. Discreet meetings were arranged in the flat of a pro-Thatcher businessman. The purpose of the meetings was for Lady Falkender to convey to the Tory campaigners her assessment of what the Labour party was thinking. Under Thatcher's leadership, the party won that year's general election.<ref name="guardian">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher. The Authorized Biography. From Grantham to the Falklands. Alfred Knopf, 2013, 409.</ref>

House of Lords

Marcia Williams was created Baroness Falkender. Falkender was one of her mother’s middle names. She took her seat in the House of Lords on 23 July 1974 in the presence of Harold Wilson. She became a regular attender and voter in the house, although she never made a speech.<ref>Gavin Hyman, "Williams [née Field], Marcia Matilda, Baroness Falkender (1932–2019)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 13 April 2023. Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson, HarperCollinsPublishers,1992, 630-631.</ref> She eventually became the longest serving Labour member of the House of Lords. She last voted in 2011.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Following her peerage, Private Eye often referred to her as "Forkbender", an oblique reference to the contemporary activities of Israeli illusionist Uri Geller.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Writings

Marcia Williams wrote two books about her time in Downing Street: Inside Number 10 on the period 1964–1970 and Downing Street in Perspective on Wilson's third term as Prime Minister 1974–1976. After retiring from working in Downing Street, she worked as a columnist for the Mail on Sunday from 1983 to 1988. She continued to work for Wilson, handling his private business from the time of his resignation in 1976 until his death in 1995. Both her books and columns were ghost-written.<ref name="Lady Falkender obituary">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The Silver Trust

Williams was one of the founder members of The Silver Trust, a charity which sponsored British silversmiths to provide a silver service for 10 Downing Street. Prior to The Silver Trust, Downing Street had no silverware of its own; it was provided on loan from other government offices.<ref>Silver Trust Website Template:Webarchive</ref>

Yes Minister

Marcia Williams was one of the sources inside Whitehall used by the writers of the comedy series Yes Minister.<ref name="Lady Falkender obituary"/> Another one was Lord Donoughue.<ref>Yes Minister. Comedy Connections. Season 6. 25 July 2008.</ref>

Libel action against the BBC

In 2001 Joe Haines re-wrote his original book, The Politics of Power, making allegations about Falkender. The BBC commissioned a drama written by Francis Wheen, the deputy editor of Private Eye, based on Joe Haines’s memoirs and Bernard Donoughue’s diaries: The Lavender List. It was aired on 1 March 2006. Falkender sued the BBC for libel, and was awarded £75,000.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="baroness-falkender" /> She also obtained the promise that the BBC would never show the drama again.<ref>Linda McDougall, Marcia Williams. The Life and Times of Baroness Falkender. Biteback Publishing, London, 2023, xiii.</ref>

Personal life and death

In 1957, in need for a larger income, Ed Williams moved alone to the United States to take a job for Boeing in Seattle. The physical separation was intended to be temporary, but Marcia and Ed divorced in 1961. Ed Williams had fell in love with an American girl and asked Marcia for a divorce. However Marcia continued to be known as Marcia Williams in her professional life.<ref>Gavin Hyman, "Williams [née Field], Marcia Matilda, Baroness Falkender (1932–2019)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 13 April 2023. Philip Ziegler, Wilson, 1995, 121.</ref>

As a single woman she had a serious and sustained relationship with the newspaper journalist Walter Terry. Together they had two children, Timothy (born in 1968) and Daniel (born in 1969). The birth of both children out of wedlock went mostly unreported by the press. On 19 April 1974, Private Eye (issue 322) revealed that Marcia had started an affair with Walter Terry, then political correspondent of the Daily Mail and had become pregnant. Marcia had secretly assumed the name of Marcia Williams Terry. In 1971 Walter Terry returned to his wife.<ref>Gavin Hyman, "Williams [née Field], Marcia Matilda, Baroness Falkender (1932–2019)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 13 April 2023. Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson, HarperCollinsPublishers, 1992, 522-523. Linda McDougall, Marcia Williams. The Life and Times of Baroness Falkender. Biteback Publishing, London, 2023, 119.</ref><ref name="guardian" />

Joe Haines, the former press secretary of Harold Wilson, published a story about the supposed role of Marcia Williams in the wedding of her brother, Tony Field to Margarete Hutchinson. Joe Haines wasn't a witness to the events, but got the story when Harold Wilson phoned him late on the night of Tony's wedding because Marcia Williams was in trouble at Heathrow after using a private plane to join the wedding in Leeds together with her two children and Mary Wilson: she had been travelling without passport or proof why she had commandeered the private plane. After the wedding church ceremony the bride and groom arrived in London en route to their honeymoon and went to Marcia's house in Wyndham Mews, where they had been staying, to pick up their passports and tickets. They were missing. According to Joe Haines, Tony Field called the police. At that moment Marcia reappeared at the airport. The story of the supposed burglary was retold to the police in presence of Marcia Williams. Marcia immediately produced the papers. She told she had put them away for "safe keeping". Linda McDougall researched the story for her book about Marcia Williams. It turned out Marcia had given a partial untrue story to protect her two sons from scrutiny by the British press. McDougall asked Margeret Field, Tony's widow, if the story about the supposed burglary was true. Margarete sniffed and said that Marcia had stuffed the tickets, passports and money under the kitchen sink.<ref>Linda McDougall, Marcia Williams. The Life and Times of Baroness Falkender. Biteback Publishing, London, 2023, 143-146.</ref>

There was speculation that Wilson had an affair with Marcia Williams, but if that happen it was over long before Wilson came to power. In 2024 The Times revealed that while in Downing Street, Wilson had an affair with his deputy press secretary Janet Hewlett-Davies. It was a revelation made by Joe Haines.<ref>Valentine Low, Power and the Palace. The Inside Story of the Monarchy and 10 Downing Street. Headline Press, 2025, 154. ISBN: {{978 1 0354 18881 7}}.</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Lady Falkender obituary"/> In October 2025 this was denied by Alan Johnson, the former Labour minister and author of a new biography on Harold Wilson. He accused Joe Haines, who died in February 2025),<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> of being a “poisonous misogynist” who had brought a lot of false stories into the world. The claims about an affair with Janet Hewlett-Davies were according to Johnson, based on information given by someone else of Wilson’s staff (Sue Utting), 'total rubbish'. Johnson claims the friendship between Wilson and Hewlett-Davies was platonic. Utting had told Johnson that Hewlett-Davies used to visit Wilson during his second premiership at 8pm because Wilson was very lonely, while Mary Wilson didn’t want to have anything to do with Downing Street. According to Johnson Haines had also been the source of a story that Williams had once told Wilson’s wife, Mary, that she had had sex with her husband six times and it had been “unsatisfactory” on each occasion. Johnson told the Cheltenham Literature Festival that Joe Haines had been 'responsible for a lot of the negative stories about his own boss', adding: 'With friends like Joe Haines you didn’t need enemies.'<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1967, Wilson sued the pop group The Move for libel after the band's manager Tony Secunda published a promotional postcard for the single "Flowers in the Rain", featuring a caricature depicting Wilson in bed with Falkender. Wilson won the case, and all royalties from the song were assigned in perpetuity to a charity of Wilson's choosing.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In her sixties, Lady Falkender suffered a stroke. Her illness confined her to a motorized wheelchair. However, she remained mentally agile. She continued to see friends and attend the House of Lords. Towards the end of her life, she entered Newstead Lodge nursing home in Southam, Warwickshire. She died there of bronchopneumonia on 6 February 2019.<ref>Gavin Hyman, "Williams [née Field], Marcia Matilda, Baroness Falkender (1932–2019)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 13 April 2023.</ref> The news of her death was not reported until 16 February.<ref name="bbc" /><ref name="telegraph" />

According to Linda McDougall, Marcia Williams died virtually penniless. In 2023, when McDougall's book was published, no will or probate declaration had been published, so it seems Marcia's net worth was small. Ade Adenuga, the owner of Newstead Lodge, told Linda McDougall Marcia had been popular with other residents.<ref>Linda McDougall, Marcia Williams. The Life and Times of Baroness Falkender. Biteback Publishing, London, 2023, 8.</ref>

2023 biography by Linda McDougall

In October 2023, a biography of Marcia Williams, Lady Falkender was published. The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian published some highlights from it. The author, Linda McDougall, had obtained information that Marcia Wiliams and Harold Wilson had conducted an affair shortly after they met. According to an unpublished memoir by Wilson's election agent, George Caunt, the couple first met at a dinner at Labour's headquarters in April 1956. Caunt wrote that after the dinner finished, Wilson introduced himself to Falkender. After this, Wilson offered her a lift in his car, "and that night began an affair which was to last 5-6 years." Wilson always denied an affair, whilst Falkender dismissed the suggestion as a smear. McDougall claims Wilson did have an affair with his long-serving secretary Marcia Williams but it was over by the time he became prime minister.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> McDougall's book has many details about her political career and her private life, including amongst other things how the press held off from publicising matters such as the potentially career-destroying revelation that she had had two children out of wedlock, and how she hid her pregnancies from the 10 Downing Street personnel.<ref name="bio">Template:Cite news</ref>

McDougall praises Ben Pimlott's Harold Wilson in her book, 'a brilliant biography never bettered, and I now consider it to be even more distinguished because it gave Marcia a fair appraisal. Pimlott gave Marcia full credit for what she had achieved politically.'<ref>Linda McDougall, Marcia Williams. The Life and Times of Baroness Falkender. Biteback Publishing, London, 2023, 256.</ref> She tried during her journalistic research to go a step further. Was Marcia Williams the political partner of Harold Wilson who together run the country? Was Marcia the forerunner of Margaret Thatcher in the sense that a woman was able to exercise extensive political power? However, McDougall failed to find evidence.<ref>Linda McDougall, Marcia Williams. The Life and Times of Baroness Falkender. Biteback Publishing, London, 2023, passim.</ref> All materials in archives underlined Falkender's importance to Wilson as political secretary, but there are no signs Marcia did suggestions about government policy. The political papers of Harold Wilson, part of the Bodleian Library's special collection, highlights the work Marcia did as a devoted and hard-working controller of affaires in Wilson's constituency, the House of Commons and the Labour Party. Marcia Willams did all research for correspondence with Wilson's constituents and wrote replying letters herself.<ref>Linda McDougall, Marcia Williams. The Life and Times of Baroness Falkender. Biteback Publishing, London, 2023, 87-89.</ref>

After failing to proving her stance, Linda McDougal supposes in stead Marcia Williams was the first to establish herself as female political secretary, but also as a special adviser in Downing Street - people who weren't civil servants and weren't politicians. Wilson had to pay these special advisers themselves because there was no tradition for their existence. Marcia Williams had to create a job which nowadays is a normal phenomenon. The fact she was a (sharp-tongued) woman was an extra barrier in her struggle to find a place in Downing Street.<ref>Linda McDougall, Marcia Williams. The Life and Times of Baroness Falkender. Biteback Publishing, London, 2023, 88-99. Page 264-265: comparison with Keir Starmer who hired Sue Gray in advance of his election as Prime Minister. Statement McDougall: nowadays everyone understands the value of a great organiser to control the political mayhem that surrounds a new Labour government and its leader.</ref>

Linda McDougall interviewed Joe Haines (journalist) personally for her book and published transcripts of parts of this interview in her book. Haines gave McDougall important information, but denied that Wilson and Falkender were (equal) partners to run the country. Haines stated Falkender didn't have a rol in government policy. In his experience Falkender had very little to do with policy. However, in running the political office she was all powerful and that spilled over. In Haines' view that central role in the political office was the reason why she was hated and feared by Wilson's colleagues. Besides, Falkender showed strange behaviour because she used drugs. Haines had never met a woman with her sort language and using it to the Prime Minister. It was intolerable how she did it because of the lack of respect towards the institution of Prime Minister. Haines didn't believe there has ever been another woman like Falkener.<ref>Linda McDougall, Marcia Williams. The Life and Times of Baroness Falkender. Biteback Publishing, London, 2023, 231-251.</ref>

References

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External links

• Peer of the Week, Unlock Democracy website, 11 October 2012, accessed 18 October 2012

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