Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor

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Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor bigraphy, stories - Member of Parliament (British House of Commons)

Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor : biography

May 19, 1879 – May 2, 1964

Nancy Witcher Langhorne, Viscountess Astor, CH (May 19, 1879 — May 2, 1964) was the first woman to sit as a Member of Parliament (MP) in the British House of Commons.Constance Markievicz was the first woman elected to the House of Commons in December 1918 after running for the Sinn Féin party in 1918 General Election, but in line with Sinn Féin’s abstentionist policy she did not take her seat. Markievicz was also detained in Holloway Prison at the time. She was the wife of Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor.

First campaign for Parliament

Several elements of Lady Astor’s life to this point influenced her first campaign, but the main reason she became a candidate in the first place was her husband’s situation. He had enjoyed a promising career for several years before World War I in the House of Commons, but then he succeeded to his father’s peerage as the 2nd Viscount Astor. This meant that he automatically became a member of the House of Lords and forfeited his seat of Plymouth Sutton in the House of Commons; so Lady Astor decided to contest the vacant Parliamentary seat.

Astor had several disadvantages in her campaign. One of them was her lack of connection with the women’s suffrage movement. The first woman elected to the British Parliament, Constance Markievicz, said Lady Astor was "of the upper classes, out of touch". (While Lady Astor was the first female member of the House of Commons who actually took up her seat, she was not the first woman to be elected to the House. Markievicz did not take up her seat because of her Irish Republican views.) Countess Markievicz had been in Holloway prison for Sinn Féin activities during her election, and other suffragettes had been imprisoned for arson; Astor had no such background. Even more damaging to Astor’s campaign were her well-known hostility to alcohol consumption and her ignorance of current political issues. These points did not endear her to the people of Plymouth, the constituency from which she was elected. Perhaps worst of all, her tendency to say odd or outlandish things sometimes made her look rather unstable. She was sometimes just unfortunate. On one occasion, while canvassing in Plymouth, one door was opened by a young girl who answered in the negative to Astor’s rather haughty question about the whereabouts of her mother. Being unfamiliar with the area, she had been given a naval officer as an escort. The child went on: "but she said if a lady comes with a sailor they’re to use the upstairs room and leave ten bob". [50p]Reagan, Geoffrey. Military Anecdotes (1992) p. 127, Guiness Publishing ISBN 0-85112-519-0

However, Astor also had some positive attributes in her campaign, such as her earlier work with the Canadian soldiers, her other charitable work during the war, her vast financial resources for the campaign and, most of all, her ability to improvise. Her ability to turn the tables on the hecklers was particularly useful. Once a man asked her what the Astors had done for him and she responded with, "Why, Charlie, you know,"A mildly sexual innuendo and later had a picture taken with him. This informal style baffled yet amused the British public. She rallied the supporters of the current government, was pragmatic enough to moderate her Prohibitionist views, and used women’s meetings to gain the support of female voters. A By-election was held on 28 November 1919, and she took up her seat in the House on 1 December as a Unionist (also known as "Tory") Member of Parliament.

The 1930s

The 1930s were a decade of personal and professional difficulty for Lady Astor. An early sign of future problems came in 1928 when she won only a narrow victory over the Labor candidate. In 1931 her problems became more acute when Bobbie, her son from her first marriage, was arrested for homosexuality. Because Bobbie had previously shown tendencies toward alcoholism and instability, Astor’s friend Philip Kerr, now Marquess of Lothian, told her that the arrest might be positive for him. This prediction would turn out to be incorrect. Astor also made a disastrous speech stating that alcohol use was the reason England’s national cricket team was defeated by the Australian national cricket team. Both the English and Australian teams objected to this statement. Astor remained oblivious to her growing unpopularity almost to the end of her career.Sykes (1984), pp. 351–2, 371–80Masters (1981), pp. 161–8