Barbara Wootton, Baroness Wootton of Abinger

Barbara Frances Wootton, Baroness Wootton of Abinger, CH (14 April 1897 – 11 July 1988) was a British sociologist and criminologist. She was the first of four women to be appointed as a life peer, entitled to serve in the House of Lords, under the Life Peerages Act 1958, after the names of the holders of the first 14 life peerages to be created had been announced on 24 July. She was President of the British Sociological Association from 1959 to 1964.

Wootton was born Barbara Adam on 14 April 1897 in Cambridge, England. She had two older brothers. Her father, James Adam (1860–1907) was a classicist and tutor at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Her mother, Adele Marion, was a fellow of Girton College, Cambridge.

Wootton was educated at the Perse School for Girls. She studied Classics and Economics at Girton College, Cambridge from 1915 to 1919, winning the Agnata Butler Prize in 1917. Wootton gained a first class in her final exams, but as a woman she was prevented from appending BA to her name.

On leaving Cambridge Wootton moved to the London School of Economics to take up a research studentship. In 1920 she took up a fellowship at Girton College. She was appointed Director of Studies and Lecturer in Economics in the college. During this time the board of economics invited her to lecture on economics and the state. She left Girton to take up a post as a research officer at the TUC jointly with the Labour Party Research Department. In 1924 she was appointed to the Treasury committee by the first Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, Phillip Snowden. She worked for the next four years on workers educational issues, such as adult literacy. From 1926 she was principal of Morley College for Working Men and Women in the Yorkshire clothier districts. The following year she returned to London to a promotion as Director of Studies for Tutorials at the University of London. In the 1930s Wootton was a member of the Federal Union and represented the Union in a historic debate against Edgar Hardcastle of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, which was later published as a pamphlet. She served on the Royal Commission investigating workmen's compensation schemes (1938–44).

During the Second World War Wootton considered herself to be a conscientious objector, although she was never liable for military service. She was, however, required, under the Registration for Employment Order 1941, to be interviewed in 1943 by a National Service Officer of the Ministry of Labour and National Service, who deemed her service as an unpaid magistrate to be of sufficient value as not to require direction to any employment. With her agreement, her husband, George Wright, registered as a conscientious objector in 1941, and did farm work and later civil defence work.

Wootton served as a chairman of juvenile court magistrates in London for nearly 20 years (1946–1962), and as a lay magistrate (1926–1970).

In 1948, she became Professor of Social Studies at the University of London. In 1952, she transferred within the university to take up a Nuffield Research Fellowship at Bedford College. She did extensive research into the pathological effects of social research and their economic benefits. The findings were published in Wootton's Social Science and Social Pathology in 1959.

Wootton was governor of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) from 1950 to 1956. She also served on two major post-war Royal Commissions on the press and civil service. In 1968, she was awarded an honorary degree (Doctor of Science) by the University of Bath. In 1969 she was made an honorary fellow of Girton College. In 1977 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH). In 1985 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Cambridge. In 1984 she was chosen as one of six women for the BBC 2 series Women of Our Century.