Silvia Rodgers

Silvia Rodgers, Baroness Rodgers of Quarry Bank, FRSL (née Szulman; 3 March 1928 – 8 October 2006), was a German-British writer and political activist. She was married to the politician Bill Rodgers.

The Right Honourable The Lady Rodgers of Quarry Bank FRSL
Born	Silvia Szulman (1928-03-03)3 March 1928
Died	8 October 2006(2006-10-08) (aged 78)
Occupation(s)	Political activist and hostess; writer; anthropologist; dentist; sculptor
Notable work	Red Saint, Pink Daughter

Early life

Rodgers was born in Wedding (Berlin) to working-class Jewish parents.^[1] Her parents were members of the Communist Party of Germany.^[2][3] Her mother insisted that Silvia not participate in the Nazi salute at school.^[3] In an afterword to her memoir, Rodgers wrote "When I was ten and still in Berlin, I had that feeling that there was nothing I could not do".^[4]

The family came to Britain in 1939.^[5]

Marriage and political involvement

Silvia Szulman and Bill Rodgers married in 1955.^[5] The couple had three daughters: Rachel, Lucy and Juliet.^[1]

Rodgers influenced her husband's political career, particularly his decision to leave the Labour Party and set up the Social Democratic Party.^[1] Bill Rodgers said that most of the child-rearing fell to Silvia and that he was neglectful; she also worked as a dentist when he was first in parliament as they were not well-off.^[6] She was noted as a political hostess.^[1][5] Rodgers described herself as feeling like an outsider, dislocated and marginal.^[1][4]

Artistic career

Rodgers was a sculptor.^[5]

Research and writing

Rodgers completed a PhD in anthropology at Oxford, on the subject of the rituals of ship-launching: The symbolism of ship launching in the Royal Navy (1983).^[1]

She was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.^[1]

Her writings include:

• "Women's space in a men's house: the British House of Commons" (1981), in Women and Space: Ground Rules and Social Maps, ed. Ardener, S
• A memoir, Red Saint, Pink Daughter: a communist childhood in Berlin and London (1996), joint winner of the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize for Non-Fiction (1997)^[7][8][9]
• The Politician's Wife: life with Bill Rodgers (2007)