Ethel Gooch (née Banham;[1] 12 December 1887[2]–6 February 1953)[3] was a British teacher and politician.
[6] Ethel Banham was born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire,[7] into a Primitive Methodist family.
[4] On 26 December 1914, she married Labour politician and trade unionist, Edwin George Gooch, at the Primitive Methodist chapel in Wymondham.
[4][8] In 1918, Edwin Gooch helped to found the South Norfolk Labour Party in Church Street, Wymondham.
[11][12] Alun Howkins, author of Edwin Gooch's entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, described Ethel as "a formidable and important figure in the history of Norfolk Labour politics".