Margaret Bondfield
Margaret Grace Bond Field (* 17th March 1873 in Chard , Somerset , † 16th June 1953 in Sanderstead ) was a British trade union functionary , politician of the Labor Party and the first female House of Labor MPs and first minister of the United Kingdom.
Life
Bondfield began an apprenticeship at a textile merchant in Brighton at the age of 14 , where she was noticed by the feminist Louisa Martindale, who gave her further education and brought her closer to the ideas and concepts of the political left .
From the age of twenty she became involved as a union official and was initially a member of the Council of the Shop Assistants' Union in London in 1894 . In 1896 she was commissioned by the Women's Industrial Council to investigate the wages and working conditions of salespeople. After the publication of her investigation report, she was elected assistant secretary of the sales union in 1898 before she became secretary of the Women's Labor League in 1908 . In 1923 she was finally chairman of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the umbrella organization for British trade unions.
In 1923 she was also a candidate of the Labor Party for the first time as a member of the lower house ( House of Commons ) elected and was this to 1924, representing the constituency of Northampton on. She was the first MP of the Labor Party.
In 1924 she became Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Labor and thus took over her first government office as "Junior Minister" in the cabinet of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald from January to November 1924 . In 1926 she was re-elected to the House of Commons and represented the constituency of Wallsend until she was defeated in 1931 .
On June 5, 1929 appointed Prime Minister MacDonald them as Labor Minister ( Minister of Labor ) in his cabinet, which she became the first female minister in the history of the United Kingdom. She held the post of Minister of Employment until the end of MacDonald's Labor government on August 24, 1931.
In 1935 she ran again in the constituency of Wallsend unsuccessfully for re-election in the lower house.
Publications
- Socialism for Shop Assistants (1909)
- The National Care of Maternity (1914)
- The Meaning of Trade (1928)
- Why Labor Fights (1941)
- Our Towns: A Close-up (1943)
- A Life's Work (1949)
Web links
- United Kingdom Ministers (Guide To Women Leadership)
- Biography (spartacus.co)
- Margaret Bondfield: the first female minister and first female member of the British Cabinet (progressivewomen.org)
- Biography (laborwomensnetwork.org)
- Woman's Hour (BBC)
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bondfield, Margaret |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Bondfield, Margaret Grace |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British politician (Labor), Member of the House of Commons |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 17, 1873 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Chard , Somerset |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 16, 1953 |
| Place of death | Sanderstead |