Stephenwilliamsmp.wordpress.com Website Review

BLOG OF STEPHEN WILLIAMS, MP FOR BRISTOL WEST 2005 – 2015. December 2018 marks the centenary of women being able to stand for election to Parliament.  The Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act was pas*ed just a few weeks before the general election held on 14th December 1918 so only sixte*n women candidates stood. Three years later the first Liberal woman MP was elected.  Margaret Wintringham was elected in a by election in September 1921, succeeding her deceased husband in the Louth constituency of Lincolnshire. She followed the Tory Nancy Astor as the second woman to take her seat in the House of Commons. Wintringham had served as a magistrate and school board member. Her local government and community activity later became a familiar path for many Liberal and Liberal Democrat MPs. Wintringham held her seat in the 1923 general election at which Vera Woodhouse, Lady Terrington, was also elected.  Terrington defeated the sitting Tory MP for Wycombe in Buckinghamshire.  Both Wintringham and Terrington were swept away in the Liberal meltdown at the 1924 The third woman to be elected as a Liberal MP was Hilda Runciman. She gained St Ives from the Tories in a by-election in March 1928. Her tenure was from the start intended to be short lived as her husband, the former cabinet minister Walter Runciman, MP for Swansea West, had already been lined up to switch to St Ives at the next general election. Walter held St Ives in the 1929 election but Hilda was narrowly defeated at Tavistock.  It was at the 1929 election that arguably the most famous female Liberal MP was elected.  Megan Lloyd George was the youngest child of David Lloyd George. She won the usually safe Liberal constituency of Anglesey, across the Menai Straits from her father’s seat. She held the constituency for the next four general elections before losing to Labour in 1951. She returned to the House in 1957, this time as a Labour MP, sitting until her death in 1966. It was to be another thirty years before another woman was elected in the liberal tradition. Shirley Williams vies with Megan Lloyd George