Margaret Mackworth, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda

Lady Margaret Mackworth, around 1915

Margaret Haig Mackworth, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda , née Margaret Haig Thomas (born June 12, 1883 in Newport , † July 20, 1958 in London , England ) was a Welsh aristocrat , author and active suffragette . She is best known as the founder of the political magazine Time and Tide .

Origin and family

Lady Mackworth was the only child of the Welsh politician and mine owner David Alfred Thomas (1856-1918) and his wife Sybil Margaret Haig (1857-1941). Margaret received an extensive education, she attended Notting Hill High School, St Leonards School in St Andrews and Somerville College in Oxford . She also spoke fluent German and French . Margaret felt closest to her father throughout her life.

On July 9, 1908 Margaret Thomas married in Christchurch, Welsh, twelve years her senior Humphrey Mackworth (1871-1948), heir to a baroness and like her from a good home. The spouses were very different in character and never particularly close, which made the relationship difficult. They did not have a particularly warm marriage. After a short time Margaret was bored of the orderly and sheltered life as a wife, she felt trapped and unfulfilled. There were no children from the marriage.

Part of the women's movement

She had also developed a feminist penchant for years , finding the social barriers that surrounded women at the time unfair and outdated. She wanted to work actively for women's rights. Just four months after their wedding, she joined Emmeline Pankhurst's Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and set up a local unit for that organization in her hometown of Newport. She invited Emmeline Pankhurst to open the first meeting at the Mackworths' estate with a speech. Since she was unable to attend , she sent her daughter Sylvia , who, however, refused Humphrey Mackworth access to the house. He did not understand his wife's feminist ambitions and did not support her in any way.

Margaret Mackworth, Viscountess Rhondda (undated).

After Mackworth joined the suffragettes , she studied feminism and read all the scriptures she could find on the subject. Most of their sources were simple newspaper articles or poorly made pamphlets, as there were hardly any books on women's rights at the beginning of the 20th century. All the material at her disposal came from the Cavendish-Bentinck Library in London (now the Women's Library ), founded by Ruth Cavendish-Bentinck , a lady of high society and, like Mackworth, a member of the WSPU.

Although Mackworth was deterred by the militant actions of the suffrigate movement and wanted nothing to do with it, sooner or later she came into contact with it. When she blew up a mailbox containing a chemical bomb , she was arrested and detained. She forbade her husband to post bail and instead went on a hunger strike . After five days, the prison administration gave in to concerns about the celebrity's health and Mackworth was released. From then on, she refrained from such measures and instead increasingly advocated women's right to vote. When Humphrey's father died on March 8, 1914, her husband inherited his title and property, and the couple became Sir and Lady Mackworth.

With the outbreak of World War I , the WSPU leadership decided to put its militant campaigns in the background and support the UK's war effort .

On board the Lusitania

In April 1915 Mackworth accompanied her father and his secretary Arnold Rhys-Evans on a business trip to the United States . D. A. Thomas was on behalf of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George to guarantee the supply of ammunition to British troops and to arrange a corresponding agreement with the US government. On May 1st, father and daughter boarded the British luxury liner RMS Lusitania in New York City as first class passengers to return to the United Kingdom. Mackworth occupied cabin B-90; Thomas and Rhys-Evans the adjoining Parlor Suites B-86 and B-88.

On May 7th, the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk off the Irish coast by a German submarine without warning. Mackworth and her father were in front of the elevator on D-deck at the time of the explosion, but quickly lost sight of each other in the chaos on board. On deck, Margaret met two of her table mates from the first class dining room, Dr. Howard L. Fisher, the brother of former US Secretary of the Interior Walter L. Fisher and his sister-in-law, Dorothy Conner. With the panicked crowds in mind, Mackworth turned to Conner and said, “I always thought a shipwreck was a very well organized affair.” Dorothy Conner replied, “I thought so too, but I've learned a hell of a lot in the last five minutes . "

Her companions saw no other option but to jump off the boat deck , which Mackworth deeply horrified - she suffered from vertigo and could not swim. In the water she got tangled in ropes, but was able to free herself and hold on to parts of the wreck. Shocked and hypothermic , she eventually passed out. Hours later, the little steamer Bluebell found her still unconscious in a wicker chair. Since she was believed to be dead, the rescue workers put her on a pile of bodies on deck, where she woke up some time later. The Bluebell reached Queenstown, Ireland at 11 p.m., almost nine hours after the ship went down.

Both Lady Mackworth and her father and the secretary survived the catastrophe in which 1198 people died, but the experience left its mark both physically and mentally. She firmly believed that she had survived only because the purpose of her existence had not yet been fulfilled.

Political Efforts

In 1916 Mackworth's father was given the title Viscount Rhondda , and a year later he was appointed the new Minister for Nutrition. Mackworth herself, despite her activities at the WSPU, also got a job in the government and became the department head of the Women's Department in the Ministry of National Service . In 1918 her report on the Women's Royal Air Force resulted in the discharge of its commandant, Violet Douglas Pennant , who was replaced by Helen Gwynne-Vaughan .

House of Lords

In 1918, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland introduced the right to vote for all women over 30. In the same year, D. A. Thomas was promoted to Viscount Rhondda , but died less than a month later. The title of nobility passed to Margaret, who then tried to become a member of the House of Lords like her father . She relied on the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act of 1919, which stated that "a person cannot be excluded from public office on the basis of gender or marital status ." The committee that received her petition agreed with her and announced that the Viscountess Rhondda has the right by birth to sit in the House of Lords. This caused consternation among many members of the House of Lords such as the Lord Chancellor Frederick Earl of Birkenhead . According to George Bernard Shaw , a great admirer of Lady Mackworth, the Lords viewed her as unreasonable and "terrible" because of her political background. They issued an ultimatum: "If Lady Rhondda comes in here, let's go!" Lord Birkenhead quickly put together a new committee that assessed Lady Mackworth's petition completely differently and declared her claim null and void. That was the end of the matter for her.

Lady Mackworth continued to insist that the rights of women be adjusted by law and sought to remove the age limit on women's suffrage . However, it was unsuccessful.

While things were going downhill politically for Margaret Mackworth, things weren't much better privately either. The marriage to Sir Humphrey was still complicated, the couple had failed to get to know and understand each other over the years. Their views were too different; on the one hand the arch-conservative Humphrey, on the other hand the liberal , progressive Margaret. In 1922 the couple divorced. In 1948 she changed her last name to Thomas .

Author and editor

In 1920 she founded Time and Tide magazine , which supported the political left and above all women and was published by Helen Archdale. It was well received internationally and was gradually enriched with contributions from Nancy Astor , George Orwell , George Bernard Shaw , Emmeline Pankhurst , Virginia Woolf , DH Lawrence and others. In 1926 Margaret took over the publication of the magazine herself, which in the course of its development moved further and further to the right and took on strongly anti-communist traits. The otherwise so much discussed women's affairs also lost their priority. In 1933 Lady Mackworth published her biography , This Was My World , which provided deep insights into her personality and view of life. From 1950 to 1955 she was President of the University College of South Wales .

Women in the House of Lords

In the 1940s the discussion about the admission of women into the House of Lords took off. Lady Mackworth and others started a petition to show those responsible how much public support they were getting. Over 50,000 signatures were collected, including the directors of Oxford and Cambridge Universities . In 1949 the Lords gave in and signaled their approval, but the Labor government under Prime Minister Clement Attlee refused to pass a corresponding law. Reform could no longer be stopped in the 1950s. Lord Home introduced a bill that would allow women to be called to the House of Lords. The draft was complied with and in 1958 four women were appointed members of the House of Lords: Baroness Ravensdale , Baroness Swanborough , Baroness Elliot and Baroness Wootton . It was too late for Lady Mackworth, she died in London in 1958 at the age of 75. Since she had no children, her title became void.

During the last years of her life, her magazine had drained her financial resources and she had looked in vain for new donors. After her death, the publication of Time and Tide could still be maintained by friends and wealthy readers; In 1977 printing was finally stopped. To this day, Lady Mackworth is regarded in England as a pioneer of the women's movement that paved the way for women into the House of Lords.

Works

• Leisured Women. (Hogarth Essays, 2nd Series; XI) . L. and Virginia Woolf, London 1928
• This Was My World . MacMillan, London 1933
• Notes on the way . Books for Libraries Press, New York 1937
• Men not mases . Time and Tide, London 1944
• University omen and Business , Journal of the American Association of University Women, 1950

literature

• Shirley M. Eoff: Viscountess Rhondda. Equalitarian feminist . Ohio State University Press, Columbus 1991, ISBN 0-8369-0822-8 .

Web links

• Margaret Haig Thomas, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda on thepeerage.com , accessed October 18, 2015.
• Literature by and about Margaret Mackworth, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda in the WorldCat bibliographic database

predecessor	Office	successor
David Thomas	Viscountess Rhondda 1918-1958	Title expired