Illtyd Harrington (14 July 1931 – 1 October 2015) was a British Labour Party politician who served as deputy leader of the Greater London Council (1981–84) and then subsequently as chairman (1984–85).

In the poverty of the 1930s, she also sold her wedding ring to keep the family for a week, telling her husband it had dropped down the sink.

He moved to London after gaining employment in Brixton, before becoming a geography teacher at Kennington Secondary school.

[citation needed] Harrington was openly gay and lived for fifty years with his partner, Christopher "Chris" Downes, who worked as a theatrical dresser for Laurence Olivier and Maggie Smith.

[1][2] Harrington's political career started with election to Paddington Borough Council in 1959 for the Harrow Road ward.

[citation needed] In 1964, he moved to the newly formed Westminster City Council, representing the new Harrow Road ward.

It was promulgated that he might be offered a peerage, but both MI5 and MI6 were investigating the cabinet for suspected incidents of Soviet espionage, and he was refused.

He had perhaps not anticipated the flood of hard left councillors elected in 1981, who staged a coup to oust McIntosh in favour of Ken Livingstone.

[5] Early in his career, Harrington developed the Freedom Pass, which gave free travel on London buses to the elderly and disabled.