| rdfs:comment | - Lucille d'Oyen Iremonger (née Parks) (June 1915 - January 1989) was a non-fiction author and politician. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, her father was the editor of the Jamaica Times. She won a scholarship to study English at Oxford University and moved to England. She married a fellow Oxford undergraduate, Tom Iremonger, in 1939. Her husband received a post as a civil servant in various colonies in the Western Pacific, and she accompanied him to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands and Fiji. Her first book, It's a Bigger Life, was published in 1948 and was based on her experience in the Pacific islands.
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| abstract | - Lucille d'Oyen Iremonger (née Parks) (June 1915 - January 1989) was a non-fiction author and politician. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, her father was the editor of the Jamaica Times. She won a scholarship to study English at Oxford University and moved to England. She married a fellow Oxford undergraduate, Tom Iremonger, in 1939. Her husband received a post as a civil servant in various colonies in the Western Pacific, and she accompanied him to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands and Fiji. Her first book, It's a Bigger Life, was published in 1948 and was based on her experience in the Pacific islands. In all she wrote nineteen books. Her first success as an author was in 1957, with The Ghosts of Versailles. The book investigated the purported sightings of Marie Antoinette and her retinue by some Oxford professors visiting Versailles in 1901. Her most successful book was The Fiery Chariot, a work exploring the parentage of British prime ministers, revealing that 67% of them had been illegitimate or orphaned at an early age. Her thesis was that this had given them a drive to seek power. In 1954 her husband, who was a member of Chelsea Borough Council, won a by-election to become Conservative Party member of parliament for Ilford North, holding the post until 1974. In 1961 she was elected as a Conservative Party member of the London County Council representing Lambeth, Norwood. This was the last election to the county council, and she remained a member until its abolition in 1965. She died aged 73, and was survived by her husband (who died in 1998) and a daughter who was a barrister.
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