Baroness Mary Warnock was a prominent philosopher and educator whose official inquiry and report led to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (1990) and the creation of the Human Fertlisation and Embryology Authority. She was born Helen Mary Wilson in Winchester, the youngest of seven children. Her mother, Ethel Wilson née Schuster, was the daughter of Sir Felix Schuster, a banker, financier and Liberal politician. Her father, Archibald Edward Wilson, a housemaster at Winchester College, died before she was born. She was brought up by her mother and a nanny, Emily Coleman, and educated as a boarder at St Swithun’s School in Winchester and then at Prior’s Field School in Guildford, Surrey.
In 1942, she began studying classics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, but left after five terms to teach at Sherborne School for Girls during the war. She returned to Oxford and graduated with a first in 1948.
From 1949 to 1966 she was a fellow and tutor in philosophy at St Hugh’s College, Oxford. She also participated in radio debates on philosophy. Having been invited to write on contemporary ethics for a series published by Oxford University Press, she became interested in Sartre and Existentialism and wrote extensively on the topic.
In 1966, she became headmistress of the Oxford High School for Girls, and then, from 1972 to 1976, she was a Talbot research fellow at Lady Margaret Hall. She was subsequently a senior research fellow at St Hugh’s College until 1984, when she was appointed mistress of Girton College in Cambridge, a post she held until 1991. She was a member of the Independent Broadcasting Authority from 1972 to 1983.
In 1974 Warnock was appointed to chair a UK inquiry into special education. Her report, published in 1978, recommended teaching children with learning disabilities within mainstream education and led to wide-scale changes, including the introduction of ‘statementing’ of children to access educational support. From 1979 to 1984 Warnock sat on a Royal commission on environmental pollution.
From 1982 to 1984, she chaired the committee of inquiry into human fertilisation and embryology. The report led to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act of 1990, the legal framework for human fertility treatment and experiments using human embryos, and the establishment of a regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. She later chaired a Home Office committee on animal experimentation.
She retired in 1992, but continued to serve on public committees and write articles, columns and books, including The uses of philosophy (Oxford, Blackwell, 1992), Imagination and time (Oxford, Blackwell, 1994) and An Intelligent person’s guide to ethics (London, Duckworth, 1998). In 2000, she was a visiting professor of rhetoric at Gresham College, London.
In 1984, she was appointed as a dame commander of the Order of the British Empire and was made a life peer in 1985, taking the title Baroness Warnock of Weeke, in the City of Winchester. She sat in the House of Lords as a crossbencher until her retirement from the House in 2015. She was appointed as a member of the Order of the Companion of Honour in 2017.
In 2002, she was made an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and, in 2011, an honorary fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
In 1949 she married Geoffrey Warnock, a philosopher and fellow of Magdalen College and later vice-chancellor of Oxford University. They had five children – Kitty, Felix, Fanny, James and Maria. Predeceased by her husband and her daughter Fanny, she was survived by four of her children.
RCP editor
1 Lady Margaret Hall News Baroness Mary Warnock, LMH alumna (1924-2019). LMH, 2019. www.lmh.ox.ac.uk/news/baroness-mary-warnock-lmh-alumna-1924-2019 [accessed 31 July 2020]
2 O’Grady J. Lady Warnock obituary: Moral philosopher who headed the inquiry into embryo research and surrogate motherhood. The Guardian 21 March 2019 www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/21/lady-warnock-obituary [accessed 31 July 2020]
3 Williamson M. Mary Warnock: Hands-on philosopher who bridged gap between theory and policy in ethical debates. The Independent, 2 April 2019. www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/mary-warnock-death-philosopher-human-fertilisation-right-to-die-warnock-report-a8834391.html [accessed 31 July 2020]
4 Mary Warnock obituary: Moral philosopher who shaped fertility policy. The Irish Times 14 April 2020. www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/mary-warnock-obituary-moral-philosopher-who-shaped-fertility-policy-1.3841725 [accessed 31 July 2020]
5 Warren P. Mary Warnock: philosopher and author of the landmark report on the ethical framework for human fertilisation and embryology. BMJ 2019;365:l1531. www.bmj.com/content/365/bmj.l1531 [accessed 31 July 2020]