Baroness Knight of Collingtree, DBE 1923-2022

 The Baroness Knight of Collingtree, DBE, who died 6 April, 2022, aged 98, was a Conservative peer, and as Dame Jill Knight, was Conservative MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, 1966-97.

She was born Joan Christabel Jill Christie, 9 July, 1923.  In 1941, she joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). Her unit served in Amiens, moving later to Hamburg, following the British advance, performing ground control of aircraft. She also appeared on British Forces Network radio. 

She married 14 June 1947, Lt James Montague "Monty" Knight, RN.

Jill Knight was elected Conservative MP for Birmingham Edgbaston in 1966, a seat she held until she stood down at the 1997 election. She was appointed MBE in 1964, and advanced to DBE in 1985, and on leaving the Commons she was created a life peer as Baroness Knight of Collingtree, of Collingtree in the County of Northamptonshire. She retired from the Lords in 2016.

Jill Knight was a member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration, 1969–72. For more than two decades she was an active member of the Conservative Monday Club and was an outspoken opponent of the Irish Republican Army. Following the February 1972 Aldershot bombing by the IRA she called for legislation to outlaw the IRA, and attacked supporters and sympathisers on the mainland. She was on the Select Committee for the Council of Europe from 1977, the Select Committee for Home Affairs from 1980 to 1983, Lady Chairman of the Lords and Commons All-Party Child and Family Protection Group from 1978, on the Conservative Back-bench Health and Social Services Committee from 1982 and Secretary to the 1922 Committee from 1983 to 1987. Knight was President of the West Midlands Conservative Political Centre from 1980 to 1983, and Lady Chairman of the Western European Union Relations with Parliaments Committee from 1984 to 1988. She also served on the Council of Europe (1977–88), and as Chairman of the British Inter-Parliamentary Union (1994–97).

She was Vice-Chairman of the Association of Conservative Peers from 2002 to 2005.

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