Lady Nancy Astor

The first woman to take her seat in the UK House of Commons

On 1st December 1919 Lady Nancy Astor took her seat in the United Kingdom House of Commons, thus becoming the first woman Member of Parliament to do so.

The ironic aspects of Nancy Astor’s bid for Parliament

Technically speaking, Nancy Astor was not the first woman to be elected to the House of Commons, because Constance Markievicz had been elected the previous year but, as an imprisoned member of the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, had not taken her seat.

Women had become eligible to vote, and stand for Parliament, as a result of the 1918 Reform Act (if they were aged 30 or more — 21-year-old women only gained voting rights in 1928). A long campaign had been fought before the 1914–18 war under the slogan “Votes for Women” and there had been staunch opposition to the move, especially from British Conservatives.

There were therefore several ironic aspects to Lady Astor’s election. For one thing she was only British by marriage, being of American birth. Her husband was the immensely wealthy Waldorf Astor who was also American by birth but British by virtue of being the son of William Waldorf Astor who became a naturalised Briton in 1899.