Ishbel MacDonald

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Ishbel MacDonald (1903–1982) was the daughter of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Ramsay MacDonald and his wife Margaret MacDonald. Margaret's death in 1911 - a year after their son David had died - left Ramsay a single father to his remaining five children. When, in 1924 he came to power as Prime Minister of the country's first Labour Government, it was Ishbel, as the eldest daughter, who her father decided should be his hostess at 10 Downing Street. At just 20 she became the youngest person ever to take on the role.

With his meagre earnings and poor background Ramsay knew he would be unable to repeat the Downing Street lifestyle that previous premiers had been wealthy enough to enjoy. His first term of office lasted only ten months but during that time Ishbel did everything possible to save her father money, cutting back on the cost of heating, food, transport and servants which at the time were expected to paid out of a Prime Minister's own pocket.

Ishbel imagined that her role would be purely temporary and that when her father's minority government fell she would return to the simple life she had known. In fact she never left her father's side, acting as his official hostess through his three terms of office and his years in opposition until he died in 1937. She became one of the most popular women in Britain,and was constantly in the public eye.

In 1931 Ishbel was elected to the London County Council as Labour Party member for Bow and Bromley. Unlike her father she did not join the National Labour Organization; however, as she remained hostess at 10 Downing Street the Labour Group decided in November 1931 that she was ineligible to receive the Labour whip. She then sat as an 'Independent Socialist' on the council.

After her father retired as Prime Minister for the last time in 1935 she bought a country pub near High Wycombe and ran it for 17 years. Ishbel married and was widowed twice. Her first marriage was to Norman Ridgley in 1938. He died in 1950. Her second was to James Peterkin in 1953. He died just three years later. She had no children and from then on chose to live the rest of her life in the family home in Lossiemouth, NE Scotland, where her father had been born. She died there in 1982 aged 79.

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