On Friday I noticed that the "Today in History" mentioned that the first woman to serve a seat in British Parliament was elected on that day in 1919. She was Lady Astor, and my further reading about her yielded some fascinating facts. She was an American, for starters--born in Danville, Virginia as Nancy Witcher Langhorne. She was from a wealthy family and was also quite beautiful. Her sister, in fact, married Charles Dana Gibson, and became the inspiration for the famous "Gibson Girl." This was not the Lord and Lady Astor who were on the Titanic...they were related. Nancy married Waldorf Astor and moved to Clivedon in England.
What fascinated me the most about her, aside from her ascerbic wit (or maybe it was just her inability to be embarassed by anything that came out of her mouth!) was the fact that she was a beautiful, wealthy socialite, and could have been content in that day and time to be that alone.....but she ran for a seat in Parlaiment and gained it. She was a "Unionist" or Tory, and she also had a tendency to be elitist and somewhat racist. She did not like Jews or Catholics, for instance....something I do not particularly care for about her. She did do some good, supporting the development of nursery schools, and bringing more women into civil service, police forces and the House of Lords. She worked to reform education, as well. And, though she was a Christian Scientist, she was a great help to wounded World War I veterans (though later commented that WWII veterans didn't compare to those from WWI!)
Lady Astor was a great friend of George Bernard Shaw and actually went on a trip with him to Russia, causing great criticism as it seemed a pro-Russia stance. But, while there (remember I said she didn't care what she said!) she asked Stalin, point-blank, why he slaughtered so many Russians. Some of her other fascinating comments include:
That Hitler couldn't possibly be taken too seriously because he looked too much like Charlie Chaplin
To Churchill: "If I were your wife, sir, I would put arsenic in your coffee." to which Churchill replied: "If you were my wife, Madam, I would drink it!"
"The only thing I like about rich people is their money."
"I married beneath me. All women do."
"My vigour, vitality and cheek repel me. I am the kind of woman I would run from."
So....Lady Astor was indeed an interesting person. BUT reading about her, led me to someone else. Someone with vastly different views and a different take on "doing their part" to make the world a better place. It was the woman who was the first one elected to Parlaiment, but who did not take her seat there. Her name was Constance Markievicz. She ran as part of Sinn Fein and therefore rejected her Parlaimentary seat on principle.
Constance Gore-Booth was also from a wealthy family and was also incredibly beautiful. She too could have rested on her laurels. Instead, after her marriage to Count Markievicz, she became very involved in the Irish Revolutionary Movement. In 1909 she founded Fianna Eireann, to teach young boys to do military drills and use firearms. She was imprisoned in 1911. Most women during the Uprising acted as nurses or ran messages, but Constance joined Connolly's Citizen Army. She supervised setting up barricades and was actively involved in the fighting, being second in command to Michael Mallin. When a young girl had been horribly wounded, Constance left her side for a time, and returned, saying "Don't worry, Margaret, me dear, I got the wretched blighter for you!" In the aftermath of the Easter Uprising, she was in Kilmainham jail with the others but she was not executed, because she was a woman. Her response to that was "I do wish your lot had the decency to shoot me." She was later pardoned and later in the Irish Civil War, she was once more heavily involved with the fighting. She held a seat in the Dail and felt that the pro-treaty advocates (including Michael Collins) were traitors. There was nothing in her sense of duty that allowed her to go against her convictions.
Clivedon is in Lissadell Co. Sligo. The young W.B. Yeats had been a frequent guest when the girls Constance and Eva lived at home. In a poem he would mention Constance and her sister Eva: "Two girls in silk kimonos, both beautiful, one a gazelle." I think what fascinated me the most about these two women, Lady Astor and Constance Markievicz, and more so, surely, about Constance....was their desire to have deep convictions, and act on them. They left their pampered lives and their many admirers, to have controversial, and yet, meaningful lives, and make a mark on history. I am not saying I advocate either lady's journey, but I certainly respect their ability to make it happen for them in a day and age when to do so was the road far less traveled. Hope you also enjoyed learning a little about them both.
