Patricia Ford succeeded her father as the Ulster Unionist MP for North Down in 1953. She was one of youngest members and the first woman from Northern Ireland to sit in the House of Commons. In April 1955 she decided not to contest the seat at the general Election "on purely personal grounds." She said that she wanted to spend more time with her daughters, then aged 14 and 10, but it was subsequently clear that her marriage was in trouble. She was divorced in 1956 and immediately married Nigel Fisher, the Conservative MP for Surbiton.
Known always as Patsie, Patricia Smiles was born on 5 April 1921. She was educated at Bangor Collegiate School, Glendower School in London and abroad. She married her first husband, Neville Ford, in 1941. He was the son of the Dean of York and former headmaster of Harrow.
Patsie was proud of her ancestry. Her great grandfather was Samuel Smiles, author of Self Help, and her great aunt Mrs Beeton. Her father, Sir Walter Smiles, had represented Blackburn from 1931 to 1935 and County Down from 1945 to 1950. North Down was the product of boundary change and Smiles was elected its MP in 1951. Patsie had helped her father in every election and in his political work. She seemed the natural choice to succeed him in the seat when he was drowned in January 1953 when the ferry Princess Victoria was the victim of an appalling storm in the Irish Sea.
She was elected unopposed in April 1953, but she never really took to the House. In fact she is best remembered for an early faux pas. She wrote an article for the Sunday Express describing her first week in the House. Her principal complaint was about the behaviour of male MPs - she compared them to a "lot of naughty schoolboys" - but it was her remarks on "the room upstairs with a couple of beds" that got her into hot water. She had recounted how she had found Bessie Braddock and Edith Summerskill stretched out on them, both snoring. Bessie Braddock immediately denied that she had ever been in the room, and her fellow labour MP, Alice Bacon, claimed that Patsie had confused Mrs Braddock with Lady Davidson. "It is a particularly unobservant person who would mistake Mrs Braddock for Lady Davidson", she added, and those who knew both women well could only agree. Patricia Ford had to use part of her maiden speech to apologise to her female colleagues in the House: "if I have offended Mrs Braddock in any possible way, I apologise wholeheartedly." The unkind might say that Lady Davidson deserved an apology also.
After standing down from the Commons, Patsie remained involved in politics, largely in support of her husband, who served as minister in the Macmillan and Home Governments. She also retained a deep involvement in the affairs of Northern Ireland and in 1972 founded the Women Caring Trust, an organisation to help children in need in the province. She chaired it for nineteen years, latterly as co-Chair, and in 1991 became its President.
She died on 25 May 1995.