Margaret Ashton

Margaret Ashton (1856 – 1937) was an English suffragist, local politician, pacifist and philanthropist, the first woman City Councillor for Manchester.

Margaret Ashton was the first woman to run for election to Manchester City Council, and in 1908 became the first woman City Councillor when she was elected Councillor for Withington.^[1]

With the outbreak of the first world war in 1914, Ashton was amongst the internationalist minority who split from the NUWSS and the suffragette movement. She was a signatory of the 'Open Christmas Letter', a call for peace addressed in sisterhood "To the Women of Germany and Austria", which was published in Jus Suffragii in January 1915.^[2] She started a Manchester branch of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.^[1]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Features - Who was Margaret Ashton?, BBC Manchester
2. ^ Jill Liddington, The Long Road to Greenham: Feminism and Anti-Militarism in Britain since 1820, Virago, 1989

Further reading

• Bedford, Jane. 'Margaret Ashton : Manchester's "First Lady"'. Manchester Region History Review, 12 (1998), 3-17. ISSN 09524320.
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Features - Who was Margaret Ashton?, BBC Manchester

Persondata
Name	Ashton, Margaret
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Date of birth	1856
Place of birth
Date of death	1937
Place of death