MARGARET BONDFIELD

Rt. Hon. 'Margaret Grace Bondfield' (17 March 1873 – 16 June 1953) was an English Labour politician and feminist, the first woman Cabinet minister in the United Kingdom and one of the first three female Labour MPs. Like many figures of the Labour movement, Bondfield was a non-conformist - particularly, a member of the Congregational church.
Bondfield was born in Chard, Somerset, the eleventh child of Anne Taylor and William Bondfield, a textiles worker with left-wing views.
She began an apprenticeship at the age of 14 in a draper's shop in Brighton, where a customer, Louisa Martindale befriended her and lent her books on left-wing politics. In 1894 she moved to London and was elected to the Shop Assistants' Union district council.
In 1896 the Women's Industrial Council commissioned her to investigate the pay and conditions of shop workers, and she published a report on this in 1898. In 1898 she was elected assistant secretary of the Shop Assistants' Union and in 1908 became secretary of the Women's Labour League. She was President of the Trades Union Congress General Council in 1923.
In 1923 Bondfield was elected Labour Member of Parliament for Northampton at her third attempt but lost her seat in the general election a year later. She again stood for election in 1926, this time at a by-election in the Wallsend constituency. She was appointed Minister of Labour by Ramsay MacDonald on 8 June 1929. This was the first time that a woman had been made a Cabinet Minister. She was defeated in the 1931 general election and despite standing at Wallsend in 1935, she never returned to the House of Commons.
Between 1939 and 1945 Bondfield was chair of the Women's Group on Public Welfare.

Contents

Books by Margaret Bondfield

Books by Margaret Bondfield

★ ''Socialism for Shop Assistants'' (1909)

★ ''The National Care of Maternity'' (1914)

★ ''The Meaning of Trade'' (1928)

★ ''Why Labour Fights'' (1941)

★ ''Our Towns: A Close-up'' (1943)

★ ''A Life's Work'' (1949)