 In 1968 Bessie became vice chairman ( and therefore chairman @-@ elect ) of the Labour Party . However , in February 1969 she collapsed with exhaustion and was hospitalised . In August she resigned from the NEC on health grounds , thus forgoing her succession to the party chairmanship . In September she announced that she did not intend to contest the next general election , and would retire from politics , a decision which shocked and disappointed her constituents . In April 1970 she was awarded the freedom of the City of Liverpool , the first woman thus honoured . Bessie formally left parliament at the dissolution before the June 1970 general election ; on 13 November 1970 she died in Liverpool 's Rathbone Hospital , at the age of 71 . At her funeral service held a few days later at Anfield Crematorium , in the course of his tribute , Harold Wilson summed her up thus : " She was born to fight for the people of the docks , of the slums , of the factories and in every part of the city where people needed help " . 
