Katharine Marjory Stewart-Murray, Duchess of Atholl

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Katharine Stewart-Murray, Duchess of Atholl, DBE (6 November 1874 – 21 October 1960) was a Scottish noblewoman and Unionist politician.

Christened Katharine Marjory Ramsay, the daughter of Sir James Ramsay, 10th Baronet of Banff, she was educated at Wimbledon High School and the Royal College of Music.

On 20 July 1899, she married Marquess of Tullibardine, who succeeded his father as the 8th Duke of Atholl in 1917, whereupon Katharine became the Duchess of Atholl and the Marchioness of Tullibardine.

She was active in Scottish social service and local government, and was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1918. She was the Scottish Unionist Party Member of Parliament for Kinross and West Perthshire from 1923 – 1938, and served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education from 1924 – 1929, the first woman to serve in a Conservative government.

She resigned the Conservative whip first in 1935 over the India Bill and the "socialist tendency" of the government's domestic policy. Resuming the Whip she resigned it again in 1937 over the Anglo-Italian Agreement. Finally she resigned her seat in parliament in 1938 in opposition to Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement of Adolf Hitler. She stood in the subsequent by-election as an Independent but lost her seat.

The Duchess had sometimes confusing opinions. She argued that she actively opposed totalitarian regimes and practices. In 1931 she published The Conscription of a People - a protest against the abuse of rights in the Soviet Union. According to her autobiography Working Partnership (1958) it was at the prompting of Ellen Wilkinson that in April 1937 she, Eleanor Rathbone, and Wilkinson, went to Spain to observe the effects of the Spanish Civil War. In Valencia , Barcelona and Madrid she saw the impact of Luftwaffe bombing on behalf of the Nationalists, visited prisoners of war held by the Republicans and considered the impact of the conflict on women and children in particular. Her book Searchlight on Spain resulted from this involvement. However, Cowling cites her as saying that she supported the Republican government because "a government [Franco's] which used Moors could not be a national government". Her opposition to the British policy of non-intervention in Spain epitomised her attitudes and actions.

She was also a keen composer, composing music to accompany the poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson.

[edit] References

• Atholl, Duchess of, (Editor), Military History of Perthshire (1660-1902), 2 volumes, 1908.
• Atholl, Duchess of, Women and Politics, 1931.
• Atholl, Duchess of, Conscription of a People, 1931.
• Atholl, Duchess of, Main Facts of the Indian Problem, 1933.
• Atholl, Duchess of, Searchlight on Spain, 1st & 2nd editions June 1938; 3rd revised edition September 1938 (P/B).
• Cowling, Maurice, The Impact of Hitler - British Politics and Policy 1933-1940, Cambridge University Press, 1975, p.403, ISBN 0-521-20582-4.

Preceded by James Gardiner

Member of Parliament for Kinross and West Perthshire 1923 – 1938

Succeeded by William McNair Snadden