Mabel Howard - Later Life

Later Life

Howard retired from politics at the 1969 election, after a lifetime of service to her community. The Labour Party had introduced a compulsory retirement age for MPs, which applied to Howard, who had already been showing signs of aging. Once retired, she became increasingly isolated and paranoid, on top of the onset of dementia and pneumonia that she had already suffered while still in Parliament. On a court order, she was eventually submitted to Sunnyside Hospital, a mental asylum. She died there on 23 June 1972, having never married. She is buried with her father, Ted Howard, at Bromley Cemetery in Christchurch.