Margaret Mackworth, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Margaret Haig Mackworth, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda (12 June 1883–20 July 1958) was a Welsh peeress and active suffragette.

Born Margaret Haig Thomas, she was the only daughter of D. A. Thomas, 1st Viscount Rhondda and his wife Sybil née Haig. Margaret was educated firstly by a French, and then a German governess (becoming fluent in both languages) until the age of thirteen when she began to attend Notting Hill High School. She later when to study at St Leonards School in St Andrews and Somerville College, Oxford.

In 1908, Margaret married Humphrey Mackworth, a family neighbour and heir to a baronetcy who enjoyed fox hunting. However, the union was mismatched and Margaret saw her husband's sport as uncivilised and preferred to read. Feeling trapped within a sheltered house and viewing her married life empty, Margaret soon joined Emmeline Pankhurst's Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) four months after being married and setup a regional branch in her hometown of Newport. On joining the Suffragettes, Margaret sought to educate herself on aspects of feminism and read many pieces of information on the subject. Many of her sources were pamphlets and news articles about the suffragette's activities at the time, as books on the subject were relatively unheard of. Any material she did require however, was made available to her via the Cavendish-Bentinck Library in London (now the Women's Library), newly-founded by Ruth Cavendish-Bentinck, an illegitimate yet wealthy woman of high social standing and more importantly, a fellow suffragette.

Although disapproving of it at first, Margaret soon became involved in the militant activities of the movement and although her local branch had not yet performed anything spectacular or been particularly successful in their attempts, she soon proposed (with reluctance) to adopt the growing trend of burning undelivered mail. Margaret was soon arrested for planting a chemical bomb in a postbox and imprisoned. Nevertheless, she refused to allow her husband to bail her out and duly went on hunger strike; after five days, Margaret was released and vowed to continue to campaign for the franchise to be given to women.

Upon his father's demise on 8 March 1914, Humphrey succeeded to his father's baronetcy and Margaret became known as Lady Mackworth. On the outbreak of the First World War later that year, she accepted the decision by the WSPU to abandon its militant campaign for the vote and for the next of couple of years she worked closely with her father, who was sent by the then Minister of Munitions, David Lloyd George, to the United States to arrange the supply of munitions for the British armed forces. On their return home in May, 1915, Lady Mackworth and her father were aboard the RMS Lusitania when it was torpedoed by a German U-Boat. Although over a thousand passengers died, Lady Mackworth and her father were fortunate enough to be rescued. Lady Mackworth's brush with death left a deep impression on her and she believed that her life had been saved to give it additional purpose and direction. Later in life, she became a deeply religious and devout Christian.

A year later in 1916, Lady Mackworth's father was raised to the peerage as Baron Rhondda and became Minister of Food Control in 1917. Lady Mackworth was also given a government post (despite her previous suffragette activities) as Director of the Women's Department of the Ministry of National Service. Her report on the Women's Royal Airforce in 1918 led to the dismissal of its commander, Violet Douglas-Pennant and her replacement by Helen Gwynne-Vaughan.

In 1918 the British government recognised the right of women over thirty to vote. That same year her father was elevated in the peerage as Viscount Rhondda (with a special remainder to his daughter) but died less than a month later. Having succeeded her father as Viscountess Rhondda, Margaret soon attempted to take her seat in the House of Lords, citing the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919. The act stated "a person shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage from the exercise of any public function" and the committee to which her petition was referred, agreed that she had the right to sit in the House of Lords. This decision, however, alarmed many peers including the Lord Chancellor, Lord Birkenhead. Quoting George Bernard Shaw (who highly respected Lady Rhondda), the Lords saw her as a "terror" and because of her political business acumen, "the House of Lords has risen up and said, 'If Lady Rhondda comes in here, we go away!'" Lord Birkenhead soon set up another committee to reconsider the petition, constituting of himself and thirty other "concerned" peers and Margaret's claim was then swiftly rejected.

Although the deterioration of their relationship occurred very early in their marriage, Lady Rhondda finally divorced her husband, Sir Humphrey in 1922 - he was a Conservative and did not see eye-to-eye with his Liberal wife. Lady Rhondda persisted to change the law to accommodate women and in 1924, she had her lawyer draft a bill to remove the sex bar and had Lord Astor propose to Parliament. Although Lord Astor proposed the same bill almost annually until 1930 (with the bill at times coming within two votes of passing), he would not succeed.

Although denied a seat in the House of Lords, Lady Rhondda continued to further her cause in the magazine she founded in 1920, Time and Tide. The magazine supported left-wing and feminist causes, and was initially edited by Helen Archdale. Lady Rhondda herself later began to edit the magazine from 1926 and like its owner, the publication soon moved to the right, becoming an anti-Communist, conservative magazine that drifted away from the feminist struggle.

The issue of women in the House of Lords was revived in the 1940s, and Lady Rhondda and others launched a petition to show there existed public support for women in the House of Lords. The first six months saw 50, 000 signatures, including the principals of the women's colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. The Lords themselves finally passed a motion for women's admission in 1949, but the Labour government under Prime Minister Attlee refused to deliver the promised legislation. In later years, Margaret unsuccessfully tried to find a buyer who would continue the publication of her magazine, but by the time Lady Rhondda died suddenly in London on 20 July 1958 (having no children and her title becoming extinct), the magazine had exhausted her personal funds and there was not enough money to cover the major legacies of her will. Time and Tide was saved temporarily from bankruptcy by friends and readers, but stopped publication in 1977.

Slack attendance in the Lords during the 1950s made the chamber an ineffective governing body and full-scale reform could not be postponed any longer. Faced with this realization, Lord Home introduced a bill that created peerages for women. Continuing to exclude half the population when there was a shortage of members, as Lord Hailsham put it, was "idiotic." Four women were finally appointed to the House of Lords in 1958: Baroness Ravensdale, Baroness Swanborough, Baroness Elliot of Harwood, and Baroness Wootton of Abinger. By this time, it was much too late for Lady Rhonda, but her legacy had paved the way for women in generations to follow.