Nancy Astor was the first woman to take her seat in the UK parliament. She won her constituency of Plymouth Sutton in a by-election in 1919, when her husband, Waldorf became Viscount Astor and had to resign from the Commons. Nancy Astor became one of the longest-serving women MPs, retaining her seat until 1945.
She was fully conscious of the responsibility of being the first – and for a time the only – woman in parliament, and she accepted it with enthusiasm. She quickly built working relationships with key women’s organizations, and women all over the country regarded her as ‘their’ MP, writing to her on a vast range of subjects and expecting her to be expert in all of them.
She was also very keen to get more women into parliament and strongly supported the extension of the franchise. She was perfectly prepared to work across party lines on specific projects, and often found it difficult to fit in with the political structures and disciplines within which she was required to function.
In 1921 she was joined by the first Liberal MP (Margaret Wintringham) and a year later by a second Conservative (the Duchess of Atholl). Three Labour women - Margaret Bondfield, Susan Lawrence and Dorothy Jewson were elected in the same year.
Astor's personal politics were generally conservative, occasionally naïve, and sometimes very idiosyncratic. Her greatest legislative achievement was the 1923 Act introducing a legal minimum age (18) for the sale of alcohol. She also supported widow’s pensions, equal employment and measures to reduce maternal mortality rates, as well as the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene which campaigned to equalise moral standards for both men and women. She also favoured reform of the House of Lords.
Ironically, as more women entered parliament, Nancy Astor became more isolated, although she remained a high-profile figure. However, her wit, but her eclectic mix of opinions and her unpredictability meant that her party came to regard her as a liability rather than an asset, and her parliamentary career came to an end in 1945, when she (unwillingly) stood down. She died in 1964.
To find out more about both Nancy Astor and other early women MPs, buy a copy of 'A Great Act of Justice: the Flapper Election and After' online here.