Margaret Bondfield, the first woman appointed as a British Cabinet minister – 90 years ago this month – was the tenth child in a family of 11, raised in rural poverty in Somerset, and left school aged 14 to work in a shop.

Women of Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politics
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Margaret Bondfield, the first woman appointed as a British Cabinet minister – 90 years ago this month – was the tenth child in a family of 11, raised in rural poverty in Somerset, and left school aged 14 to work in a shop. She ­discovered politics one evening when she read about the activities of the shop workers’ union in a newspaper wrapped around her chip ­supper. She joined the union, rose through it to become one of its leaders and, on her third attempt, was elected to the House of Commons as the Labour MP for a seat that had previously had a solid, safe Conservative majority. Oh, but it wasn’t easy.

Like so many other ambitious women in the early days of the women’s franchise, Margaret Bondfield faced one hurdle after another in pursuit of a political career, and being allocated a parliamentary candidacy in a constituency she was not expected to win was most certainly not the last. It is difficult enough for anyone, man or woman, to secure election to Westminster today, but that is as nothing to the challenges that women faced in the early years of the last century as they took the first steps along a political path none had walked before.

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