- Susan Lawrence
Arabella Susan Lawrence (
12 August 1871 –25 October 1947 ) was a British Labour Party politician, one of the first female Labour MPs.Lawrence was the daughter of Nathaniel Lawrence, a wealthy solicitor, and Laura Bacon, daughter of Sir James Bacon, a bankrutcy judge and Vice-Chaancellor. She was educated in
London and atNewnham College , Cambridge. Originally a Conservative, she was a member of theLondon County Council 1910 - 1912, but after coming under the influence of the trades unionist Mary Macarthur she was converted to socialism and rejoined the council as a Labour member from 1913 - 1927, becoming deputy chairman of the LCC 1925-26. She joined theFabian Society and became close toSidney Webb and especially to his wifeBeatrice Webb . During the First World War she principally worked to improve the conditions of women factory workers.As a member of the local council in
Poplar, London 1919 - 1924, led at the time byGeorge Lansbury , Lawrence was part of the Labour group that defied central government and refused to set a rate arguing that the poverty in the area meant the poor were being asked to pay for the poor. Lawrence was imprisoned for five weeks in Holloway Prison in 1921 but ultimately she and her fellow councillors' campaign succeeded in that government passed a law to equalisePoor Law rates.Lawrence first stood, unsuccessfully, for Parliament at Camberwell North West at a
by-election in 1920, but won East Ham North in the 1923 election which saw the first Labour government take office in the January of the following year. She was one of the first three female Labour MPs alongsideDorothy Jewson andMargaret Bondfield , and was appointedParliamentary Private Secretary to thePresident of the Board of Education . The minority government lasted only nine months and, following theZinoviev letter , the Labour Party was defeated in the election of October 1924 and Lawrence was personally defeated. However, her Conservative victor,Charles Williamson Crook , died only 18 months later and Lawrence was easily re-elected at a by-election in April 1926.Susan Lawrence was appointed
Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health in the second minority Labour Government elected in 1929. She was also the chair of the Labour Party Conference inLlandudno in 1930 - the first woman to hold the position. Like the vast majority of Labour MPs in Parliament, she refused to take part inRamsay MacDonald 's National Government in the summer of 1931 and she lost her seat in the 1931 general election and was never again a Member of Parliament.Maintaining her work in the Labour Party, Lawrence was a member of the National Executive until 1941 and devoted much of her time to working with the blind for the remainder of her life. The detective novelist
Cyril Hare was her nephew.References
*Lewis, Lesley. The Private Life of a Country House.
*Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
*Pugh, Martin. "Conservative 'Class Traitors'" in English Historical Review 1998
*Webb, Beatrice "Diaries"
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* [http://www.qub.ac.uk/cawp/UK%20bios/UK_bios_20s.htm#slawrence Centre for Advancement of Women in Politics: Susan Lawrence]
*Rayment
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