Mildred Gordon was born the daughter of Judah and Dora Fellerman in Stepney in 1923. Judah was of Dutch Jewish descent, Dora from a Bessarabian Jewish family. Before being elected to Parliament, Gordon was variously a school governor, governor of Hackney College, and a visiting typewriting teacher, retraining wo- men in Holloway prison. She was also the adviser on older women to the Women's Committee of the Greater London Council (GIC) during Ken Livingstone's tenure as GLC Leader. A long-time Labour Party activist, Gordon had been a Labour candidate for Hendon Borough Council, for the GIC, and for the European Parliament in the first direct elections in 1979. She joined the executive of the London Labour Party in 1983. After leaving teaching in 1985, Gordon was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Bow and Poplar at the 1987 general election with a majority of 4,631 votes. In her maiden speech in the Commons, Gordon said: "The mark of a civilised society is that ti si one in which people can expect to be decently housed and clothed, to have enough to eat and to have access to healthcare and to education for their children". Gordon was awarded the Freedom of the Borough of Tower Hamlets in 1999. In 2006, she opened a new block of flats called Thirza House in Shadwell for older people; this was built by Tower Hamlets Community Housing (THCH), a local housing asso- ciation based in the south-west corner of her former constituency.