Rennie Fritchie, Baroness Fritchie

Irene Tordoff Fritchie, Baroness Fritchie, DBE (née Fennell; born 29 April 1942 in Fife, Scotland), known as Rennie Fritchie, is a British crossbench peer.

Life/career

Irene Tordoff Fennell, daughter of Mr and Mrs Charles Frederick Fennell, was educated at Ribston Hall Grammar School for Girls in Gloucester and has had a long career specialising in training and development. Now described as a "portfolio" worker, she has held various positions including Commissioner for Public Appointments from 1999 to 2005, and President of the Pennell Initiative for Women's Health in Later Life.

In the 1970s, she was one of the first full-time women's training advisers and pioneered the training of staff in the then new Equal Opportunities Commission. Using a German Marshall Fellowship awarded in 1985, she drew lessons from the United States of America for the United Kingdom for programmes to improve the status of women. She has published extensively on these topics and contributes regularly on them to programmes on television and radio. She became Chairman of Nominet in 2010.

Affiliations

She holds a number of positions outside government. She holds an honorary Professorship in Creative Leadership at York University and is Pro-Chancellor at Southampton University, a Civil Service Commissioner and Vice-Chair of the Stroud and Swindon Building Society. Active in a number of charities, Fritchie has been awarded honorary degrees by a number of academic institutions. Fritchie is Chair of the 2gether NHS Foundation Trust in Gloucestershire, and in 2012 was appointed as the new chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire.

Family

In 1960 she married Don Jamie Fritchie with whom she had two children, the elder dying in 1991. She was widowed in 1992.

Honours

Fritchie became a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1996 New Year Honours. On 31 May 2005 she was made a life peer as Baroness Fritchie, of Gloucester in the County of Gloucestershire, and she sits as a crossbencher in the House of Lords. In 2023 she took an leave of absence to avoid being excluded due to non-attendance.

Arms

Coat of arms of Rennie Fritchie, Baroness Fritchie

Adopted 2007 Coronet Coronet of a Baroness Escutcheon Argent three Barrulets fracted and there conjoined to a Chevronel Gules each ensigning a Labrador's Face Sable Supporters On either side a Gloucester Cow Gules the head and legs Sable the horns lower spine tail and underparts Argent in the mouth a Rose also Argent barbed seeded leaved and slipped Or Motto MAKE A DIFFERENCE Badge A Cross Crosslet Gules each limb terminating in a thistle head also Gules flowered Or Symbolism The Arms take three chevronels from the Arms of the County Council of Gloucestershire and combine these with barrulets as an allusion to the law. The feminine symbol has been used in the Badge where four of them have been conjoined. The roundel of each symbol has then formed the base of a thistle head as an allusion to Scotland.