The Forgotten MP

...and the 16 others

SINN FEIN’S CONSTANCE MARKIEVICZ HIDDEN in an alcove near the disabled toilet on the first floor of Parliament’s modern wing is a recently hung portrait of the first woman elected to Westminster, Constance Markievicz.

The significance of her landmark victory a century ago is surely worth a spot more prominent than a little visited corner of Portcullis House.

Nancy Astor, the first woman a year later to take her seat, has a grand plaque on the old palace’s famous committee corridor plus a bust.

However, the Plymouth Tory was a conventional figure unlike Markievicz, an aristocrat turned fiery rebel.

The Irish socialist revolutionary, a member of Sinn Fein, was in a cell in London’s Holloway prison when she made history by winning the Dublin St Patrick’s seat at the December 1918 general election.

She was sentenced to death for her role in the 1916 Easter Uprising but saved because she was female.

When she was told she wouldn’t be executed, she replied: “I do wish your lot had the decency to shoot me.”

However, even if free, she would not have sat on the benches as Sinn Fein is an abstentionist party.

FEMINIST

Born in London to wealthy parents with a large country estate in Ireland, the Mp-to-be took the surname of her Polish artist husband and was formally known as Countess Markievicz.

Settling in Dublin in 1903, she joined the struggle for independence.

“Constance Markievicz was a feminist, a socialist, an internationalist, a revolutionary, and a republican,” says Mary Lou Mcdonald, the first woman in modern times to lead the party.

“The 1918 election was a truly national election for Ireland – known as the Sinn Fein election. A vast

SCORES of women gathered outside Parliament yesterday to mark a little-known anniversary that changed UK politics.

The centenary of the Parliament Qualification of Women Act, emergency legislation which would allow women to stand for the first time in British history. While some majority of Sinn Fein MPS were returned, abstained from Westminster and established a National Parliament, the first Dáil.”

She went on: “It is a matter of immense pride that the first ever woman MP was elected under the banner of Sinn Fein.”

Theresa May airbrushed her from history at this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions by focusing on Astor. “I’m delighted the first woman to take her seat was a Conservative,” she said.

Since Markievicz’s historic moment a century ago, the 489 women to be elected would not fill a single chamber. And the record 208 women MPS elected at last year’s election is still only 32% of the 650 total.

The UK ranks 38th in a global Parliamentary equality league, way behind countries such as Rwanda, Bolivia, Cuba and the Seychelles.

of the women who stood for election have gone down in history since, others have been forgotten. Here Manchester Metropolitan University’s Dr Alison Ronan, who helped research a new exhibition in the city on the subject called The Women Who Said Yes!, celebrates the pioneering politicians. Liberal

Conservative Kennington

The daughter of a viscount, mother-of-five Alice lost out on the seat to Liberal candidate George Henry Purchase, endorsed by the coalition government, by a significant margin. She was the first female Conservative Party candidate in a Parliamentary election after her husband Col Francis Alfred Lucas, who was contesting the Kennington seat, died in the 1918 flu epidemic before polling day. Liberal

Labour University of Wales

Millicent was the first female parliamentary candidate in Wales – and the country’s first female professor.

She was the co-founder of the Cardiff and District Women’s Suffrage Society, in 1908, which, by 1914, was the largest outside London, and married fellow academic John Mackenzie. Like several other suffragists, feminist Millicent chose to combine her surname with his. Independent

Independent Glasgow Bridgeton

The daughter of a Glasgow lawyer, Eunice became the president of the Women’s Freedom League in 1913.

In 1917, Eunice was arrested for obstruction after trying to address a meeting near Downing Street. She wrote a novel while working in a munitions factory during the war and became the first woman to stand in a parliamentary election in Scotland. She came third, with just 5% of the vote. Independent Portsmouth South Enfield Hendon Chelsea

Independent Brentford

Cambridge-educated Ray was the honorary parliamentary secretary of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. After the Great War, she stood as an Independent parliamentary candidate at Brentford and Chiswick general elections in 1918, 1922 and 1923 without success. In 1931, she became parliamentary secretary to Britain’s first woman MP to take her seat, Nancy Astor.

ALICE LUCAS Party: ALISON GARLANDParty: Seat:Suffragist Alison was the President of Tavistock Women’s Liberal Association and an active member of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies fighting for Votes for Women. She gained the support of Liberal Leader H. H. Asquith in the election – but not Lloyd George’s Coalition government. She lost out in the first of three unsuccessful elections. Seat: JANET MCEWANParty: Seat:Scotland-born Janet, known as Jenny, had a long record of public work as the head of the Enfield Maternity Centre.Her husband John Mcewan had been selected to stand in the seat, but died before the end of the war – so, like Alice (above), she took his place. She lost to her opponent Colonel Henry Ferryman Bowles – who had been endorsed by Lloyd George – coming third, with 12% of the vote.MILLICENT HUGHES MACKENZIE Party: Seat: EDITH HOW-MARTYNParty: Seat:Suffragette Edith was arrested in the lobby of the House of Commons in 1906 trying to give a speech – one of the first ever acts of suffragette militancy.She was one of the first WSPU members to go to jail when she was given two months. Her name and picture are on Millicent Fawcett’s statue in Parliament Square.EUNICE GUTHRIE MURRAY Party: Seat: RAY STRACHEY Party: EMILY PHIPPSParty: Seat:ENGLISH teacher and suffragette Emily was an active member of the National Union of Women Teachers, and gained their backing to stand in the election. In 1911, Emily boycotted the census by spending the night in a cave in the Gower Peninsula. She lost to sitting Conservative MP Sir Samuel Hoare and went on to become a barrister, after studying in the evening while still teaching full-time. Seat: