This year, 2015, marks the 800th anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta and 750 years since the De Montfort Parliament which was the forerunner of the modern day House of Commons. It’s being marked by a programme of events in Parliament throughout the year, Parliament in the Making. 20 January was the De … More Women and Democracy Day
Last Friday I was on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today in Parliament’ programme, interviewed by Mark D’Arcy about early women staff in Parliament. You can catch it on iPlayer for a few days still – my bit starts around 17:00. I talk for about 5 minutes about how women came to be employed in new roles … More The Home Front in Parliament: early women staff
This weekend I saw ‘The Winslow Boy’, a play by Terence Rattigan at the Old Vic. It was very good and I thoroughly enjoyed it. There was one moment however, when I thought, ‘I really don’t think that’s likely!’ That was when Catherine (Kate) Winslow, the intelligent and principled daughter of the family, went to … More The Winslow Girl and the Ladies’ Gallery
I was in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, over the Easter weekend and visited the parish church. To my surprise, I discovered that there was a women’s history interest. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836-1917), most famous for being the first woman doctor to qualify in Britain, was Mayor of Aldeburgh between 1908 and 1910. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson information panel … More Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Mayor of Aldeburgh
One always has to be careful answering the question ‘who was the first woman MP?’ as there are two answers. First there was Constance Markievicz, who was the first woman to be elected at the general election of 1918, but as a Sinn Fein MP who was in prison at the time, she never took … More Nancy Astor, first woman MP to take her seat
Edit July 2014: great news that the Church of England has finally backed women bishops. Maude Royden would be proud! Below is my blog article on early campaigns for women priests and bishops, originally published in November 2012. Following the decision of the General Synod this week not to allow female bishops in the Church … More Early 20th century campaigns for women priests
Last night I was privileged to hear a talk in Parliament about Lady Rhondda given by Professor Angela V John, at an event to mark the acquisition of a portrait of Lady Rhondda by the House of Lords. The portrait has been newly conserved and framed, and looks fantastic. The portrait was acquired by the … More Lady Rhondda takes her place in the House of Lords
Over the bank holiday weekend I went to Hever Castle in Kent, most famous as the childhood home of Anne Boleyn. I didn’t know until I got there, though, that Hever was also a home of the Astor family. William Waldorf Astor bought Hever Castle in 1903, and it passed to his second son John … More Lady Astor of the rowing boat
Did you know there’s a suffragette monument in London half-way between Victoria and Westminster? I had no idea until I stumbled upon a reference to it on a London blog the other day, and today I went to look for it. There’s a little patch of grass opposite New Scotland Yard called Christchurch Gardens, with … More Suffragette Fellowship memorial
In the UK women were allowed to become MPs in 1918, which was the same year some women got the vote. Curiously, this was not always the case elsewhere. During the debates on women MPs, the hostile Mr Peto MP argued that in New Zealand for twenty-five years women had… been eligible to sit as … More Early women MPs: New Zealand, Australia, Finland
Parliament and Women in the early 20th century 