Gwyneth Dunwoody was Labour by conviction and birth. All four grandparents were party loyalists, her father ran Labour’s national machine and her mother was an activist in local government and then the House of Lords. From the moment she joined Labour’s League of Youth as a teenager her life was immersed in the party. At first sight, therefore, she would seem an improbable figure to be the centre of the biggest rebellion against what was perceived in some quarters of the party as the authoritarianism of the Blair Government.

It was a mistake, however, to regard her as a party automaton. That mistake was made by her party managers when they arranged for her to be chairman of the Commons Transport Select Committee in the belief that she would not cause trouble. Instead she proved to be an outstandingly forceful leader who was never afraid to criticise government policy.

It was an even greater mistake for the whips, possibly under instruction, to sack her from the post, either as an act of revenge or in the hope of appointing somebody more amenable. Dunwoody did not go quietly and neither did Donald Anderson, sacked at the same time from the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. The result was a 100-strong revolt by Labour’s backbenchers that resulted in the reinstatement of both chairmen and an overhaul of the whole process of select committee appointments.

Dunwoody’s record should have been studied. Despite her tribal background she was capable of obstinate independence. She was a long-term opponent of party policy on Europe, standing as deputy leader to Peter Shore during his hopeless anti-Europe campaign for the leadership in 1983. She was the antithesis of the Blair Babes, the young women MPs who swept into the Commons at the 1997 election. Quite apart from the generation gap she did not even vote for Blair in 1994 (her choice for leader was John Prescott). Dunwoody, squarely built, with a stentorian style of oratory, stood out (“I am not employed for my dress sense”) from the brightly coloured suits of the newcomers. And one cause she never championed was special rights for women.

As early as 1982 she had been jeered by feminists at the Labour Party conference when she spoke against a motion to place a woman on every shortlist of candidates. Her consistent view was that merit and not sex should be the determining factor. She did not believe that Commons working hours should be adjusted to help Members’ family lives.

She maintained that getting legislation through the House or constraining the Executive must mean long hours. She spoke with the experience of one who had combined a parliamentary career with bringing up three children. When Betty Boothroyd was Speaker Dunwoody was among the first to support her in opposing public breast-feeding in Commons committee rooms.

Her ultimate defiance of political correctness was when she accepted the post of parliamentary consultant to the British Fur Federation. She took the £4,000-a-year job seriously enough to visit northern Canada to meet the Cree Indians who lit fires on the ice to warm her as they showed how they trapped mink and sable to make a living. None of this went down well with her constituency party or, indeed, with most of her friends and colleagues. When asked why she accepted a post that she knew would be unpopular her reply was honest. She said simply that she needed the money.

There was no doubt about that. Few MPs in modern times have been so embarrassed by the revelation of their financial problems. Her five-bedroomed constituency home was repossessed after she failed to meet mortgage repayments. She narrowly escaped eviction from her flat in the Barbican in London for rent arrears. Bailiffs seized her furniture over more rent problems. Barclays Bank took her to court over an unpaid loan. In an unprecedented move she became the first MP to be threatened with legal action by the all-party Commons catering committee after she ignored repeated demands to pay an overdue bill of £2,000 for meals and drinks. Few MPs could have emerged from such financial irresponsibility merely damaged and not destroyed. Indeed, within a few years she was being seriously considered as the new Speaker.

She was born Gwyneth Patricia Phillips into the Labour Party purple. Her father was Morgan Phillips who left school at 12 to work in a coalmine but whose abilities caused him to rise to become the powerful though bibulous general secretary of the Labour Party. Her mother, Nora Phillips, was a prominent member of the old London County Council and later, as Baroness Phillips, was appointed a government whip in the Lords.

Dunwoody’s father was a Labour Party agent in Fulham where she was born in 1930. She was educated at Fulham County Secondary School and Notre Dame Convent. She left school at 16 to become a reporter on a local paper. Later she tried her hand at acting and was briefly a scriptwriter for Radio Netherlands. She became fluent in Dutch and spoke good French and Italian.

Then, in 1954, she married Dr John Dunwoody, a general practitioner who already had an eye on entering the Commons. They moved to Devon, set up house in Totnes and in 1959 he fought Tiverton, a safe Tory seat. By 1964 they had both become candidates in promising marginals. He came within 410 votes of capturing Plymouth Sutton while she, fighting nearby Exeter, came close enough to give the Conservatives a shock. They did not have to wait long, however, for within 18 months they were both MPs.

At the 1966 election she went back to Exeter to oust Sir Rolf Dudley Williams, who had held the seat for more than 30 years. Dr Dunwoody, who had wisely moved from Tiverton to Falmouth & Camborne, did well to hold on to what had been for years a risky Labour seat. The two prospered at Westminster. Dr Dunwoody became Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Department of Health and Social Security, and she was soon promoted to be Parliamentary Secretary at the old Board of Trade.