Margaret Wintringham

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Margaret Wintringham
JP
Wintringham in 1921
Member of Parliament
for Louth, Lincolnshire
In office
22 September 1921 – 9 October 1924
Prime MinisterDavid Lloyd George
Preceded byThomas Wintringham
Succeeded byArthur Heneage
Personal details
Born
Margaret Longbottom

(1879-08-04)4 August 1879
Keighley, West Riding of Yorkshire, England
Died10 March 1955(1955-03-10) (aged 75)
Political partyLiberal Party

Margaret Wintringham

JP (née Longbottom; 4 August 1879 – 10 March 1955) was a British Liberal Party politician. She was the second woman, and the first British-born woman, to take her seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom
.

Early life

Margaret Longbottom was born in the hamlet of

West Riding approximately four miles west of Keighley, West Riding of Yorkshire, and educated at Bolton Road School, Silsden where her father was the head teacher, and then Keighley Girls' Grammar School. After training at Bedford Training College, she worked as a teacher, eventually becoming headmistress of a school in Grimsby. In 1903 she married Thomas Wintringham
, a timber merchant.

They had no children, and Margaret Wintringham became a

National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (NUSEC), the Women's Institute, the Electrical Association for Women,[1] the Townswomen's Guild and the Liberal Party
.

Later life

Wintringham was a member of the Christian Science movement[2] and died on 10 March 1955 at Hawthorne House, a Christian Science nursing home in Hampstead, London.[3]

The historian, Brian Harrison, conducted 3 interviews about Wintringham's life as part of the Suffrage Interviews project, titled Oral evidence on the suffragette and suffragist movements: the Brian Harrison interviews.[4] In March 1976 Wintringham's niece, Mrs Elizabeth Neale, spoke about her aunt's personality and role in the WI, as well as her time as Director of the Women's Land Army in Lincolnshire, and her friendship with Gwendolen Maclean, mother of Soviet double agent, Donald Maclean. In May 1976 Flora Murray, a colleague of Wintringham's spoke about her work on a number of committees and her role in Lincolnshire politics and local government, as well as her election to Parliament and her work with Nancy Astor. Wintringham's gardener and chauffer, Leslie Smith, was also interviewed in May 1976, focusing particularly on her support of local education and her work with the WI.

Political career

When her husband was elected as

Nancy Astor, a friend of Wintringham's,[5] elected in 1919. Wintringham was elected again in the 1922 and 1923 general elections
.

In Parliament, she campaigned for an equal franchise; the Representation of the People Act 1918 had extended the vote to all men over the age of 21, but only to some women over the age of 30. She also campaigned for

equal pay for women
, for state scholarships for girls as well as boys, and women-only railway carriages.

Margaret Wintringham, 1921

At the 1924 general election, she lost her seat in Parliament to the Conservative Arthur Heneage. Although she stood again in Louth at the 1929 general election and in Aylesbury at the 1935 election she did not return to the House of Commons.

She was the president of the Louth Women's Liberal Association and from 1925 to 1926 she was president of the Women's National Liberal Federation. In 1927 she was one of two women elected to the national executive of the National Liberal Federation. She was a Vice President of the Electrical Association for Women.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ EAW (1950). AW Silver Jubilee Handbook 1950. IET Library and Archives.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ^ London School of Economics and Political Science. "The Suffrage Interviews". London School of Economics and Political Science. Retrieved 8 March 2024.
  3. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/50055
    . Retrieved 8 March 2024.
  4. ^ London School of Economics and Political Science. "The Suffrage Interviews". London School of Economics and Political Science. Retrieved 8 March 2024.
  5. ^ London School of Economics and Political Science. "The Suffrage Interviews". London School of Economics and Political Science. Retrieved 8 March 2024.
  6. ^ EAW Silver Jubilee Handbook. IET Library and Archives. 1950.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

Sources

External links
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Louth
1921–1924 		Succeeded by
Party political offices
Preceded by President of the Women's Liberal Federation
1925–1927 		Succeeded by
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