Dr Kathryn Rix, Assistant Editor of the Victorian Commons, discusses the political career of the first female MP to sit in Parliament, Nancy Astor…
Nancy Astor, before she became an MP
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Nancy Astor (1879-1964), who occupies a significant place in parliamentary history as the first female MP to take her seat in the House of Commons following the passing of the 1918 Representation of the People Act. She was not, though, the first female MP to be elected: that distinction goes to Constance Markievicz (1868-1927), who joined her fellow Sinn Féin MPs in refusing to take her seat at Westminster after her election for Dublin St. Patrick’s at the 1918 general election. Several other female candidates, including the women’s suffrage campaigner Christabel Pankhurst, stood unsuccessfully in 1918.
Unlike Pankhurst, Nancy Astor had not been involved with the women’s suffrage…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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