Tributes to respected Baroness Masham longest serving female peer and disability rights champion who has died aged 87

As well as being made a life peer in 1970 as Baroness Masham of Ilton was a medal-winning pioneering Paralympian in swimming and table tennis and a dedicated champion for disability rights.

Born Susan Lilian Primrose Sinclair before her marriage to the late Lord Masham, whose name was David Yarburgh Cunliffe-Lister, she was made an Honorary Freeman of the borough by Harrogate Borough Council in 1989 in recognition of her many years of eminent and conspicuous service in the field of voluntary social work.

After she passed peacefully in hospital in Northallerton at the weekend, the Spinal Injuries Association (SIA), which she had founded in 1974, said on its website: “We are extremely sad to announce that our founder and lifelong president, Lady

Sue Masham of Ilton, passed away peacefully at Northallerton hospital on Sunday, March 12.

“It goes without saying that everybody at the Spinal Injuries Association is devastated to have lost our greatest champion.”

Lady Masham suffered an injury to her spinal cord in a riding accident in 1958 and became a became a wheelchair user.

In 1960, she won a gold medal in the 25m breaststroke at the Paralympic games in Rome and in 1964 won a second gold medal in the women's doubles table tennis in the Tokyo Paralympic Games.

She won a further six silver medals and two bronze across both sports in the three Paralympic Games at which she competed.

Baroness Masham sat as an independent crossbencher in the Lords on a number of all party parliamentary groups (APPGs), including global tuberculosis, HIV and Aids, and malaria.

In total, she spent 53 years in the House of Lords, the most of any female peer.

She set up the Spinal Injuries Association to highlight the absence of specialist care or advice for newly-injured people and served as its president until her death.

In 1976 she was the subject of ITV’s long-running, popular prime-time TV show This Is Your Life.