Shirley Williams, the former Labour cabinet minister who broke away from the party to form the SDP, has died, her current party, the Liberal Democrats, has said.
Powys' Liberal Democrats have paid tribute to Lady Williams who has died aged 90.
Welsh Liberal Democrats leader Jane Dodds paid tribute to Baroness Williams of Crosby, describing her as a “shining example of everything a politician should aspire to be".
While Brecon and Radnorshire MS Kirsty Williams said "to spend even a moment in her company was an opportunity to learn, to be inspired, and to experience immense warmth and kindness".
Liberal Democrat Senedd election candidate for Brecon and Radnorshire William Powell tweeted: "What a lady - she really broke the mould and helped shape the @LibDems
"We won't see her like again."
As a Labour minister, Lady Williams, served in the governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan in the 1970s rising to become education secretary.
However in 1981, having become disillusioned with Labour’s drift to the left under Michael Foot, she was one of the original “Gang of Four” to leave the party to form the new centrist SDP.
Ms Dodds tweeted: “Shirley Williams was a shining example of everything a politician should aspire to be – calm, principled, and always willing to speak truth to power.
“Her passing is (a) real loss for our party. She was a true friend to many in Wales and we are all the poorer for her passing.”
Lady Williams first entered Parliament as a Labour MP in 1964.
File photo dated 10/09/85 of Social Democratic Party President Shirley Williams speaking at the SDP conference when she sought to dispel the party's anti-trade union image. The former cabinet minister and Liberal Democrat peer, Baroness Williams of
Originally seen as being on the left of the party, as education secretary in the 1970s she supported the comprehensive system and the abolition of grammar schools.
But by the turbulent years of the early 1980s, alarmed at the direction it was taking under Michael Foot, she joined David Owen, Roy Jenkins and Bill Rodgers in the new SDP in an attempt to “break the mould of British politics”.
The party enjoyed some initial success in alliance with the Liberal Party, with Lady Williams winning Crosby for the SDP in a notable by-election, only to lose it two years later in the 1983 general election.
After the SDP failed to make the electoral breakthrough its founders had hoped for, she became an advocate of merger with the Liberals in what eventually became the current Liberal Democrat Party.
In 1993, she was made a life peer finally retiring as the party’s leader in the House of Lords in 2004.
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