Lady Trixie Gardner of Parkes [photo: Roger Harris_CC BY 3.0 Deed]

THE “grandmother” of the Houses of Parliament, the oldest peer in the Lords, has died at the age of 96.

Lady Trixie Gardner of Parkes – Parkes as in New South Wales – had become the first Australian woman to be granted a peerage in 1981 and remained active on the red benches well into her 90s. It had even been suggested that the number of questions that peers could ask was capped at six due to her relentless demands for answers.

She was a dentist by trade but, by night, worked for the Paddington branch of the Conservative Party before being elected to Westminster City Council in 1968.

She represented the Hyde Park ward and was later a member of the old Greater London Council. Her husband Kevin – who she had met studying dentistry – moved to London with her and also later became a councillor in Westminster.

They lived in Bayswater but for 30 years ran a dental practice in Old Street, Clerkenwell. Lady Gardner would insist on working one day every week even after being made a peer by Margaret Thatcher.

She made two unsuccessful attempts to win a place in the Commons, one of them an unlikely bid to unseat Labour’s Barbara Castle in Blackburn. But she nevertheless became known as one of the hardest-working members of the Lords.

“Despite my age, my life is very much dictated by parliament and I’m there as often as the Lords are sitting; my attendance record is among the highest and I ask a lot of questions,” she told The Times four years ago.

“I get to the Lords by myself and days can be long, it’s not unusual for the house to be sitting past 10pm. Whether I’m there or at home, there are endless telephone calls, letters and emails to deal with, and a pile of official papers to read.”

Her political memoir is called The Long Table.

Kevin, the first Australian to become Lord Mayor of Westminster when given the role in the 1980s, died in 2007.

Lady Gardner is survived by daughters Sarah, Rachel and Joanna.