Margaret Grace Bondfield

Margaret Grace Bondfield 1873-1953, British political and trade union leader. A Labour member of Parliament (1923-24, 1926-31), she served as secretary to the minister of labor (1924) and, under Ramsay MacDonald, as minister of labor (1929-31). She wrote and lectured extensively on labor and socialist movements.

Bondfield, Margaret Grace (1873–1953) English Labour politician and trade unionist. In 1923 she became chairman of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and entered Parliament. As minister of labour (1923–31), Bondfield was the first British woman to hold cabinet office.

Bondfield, Margaret (1873–1953). Trade union leader and first woman cabinet minister. Bondfield left school at 13 and became a shop assistant. She immersed herself in socialist politics, joining the Fabian Society. Her first‐hand knowledge of the plight of shop‐workers assisted her promotion within the National Union of Shop Assistants, of which she became assistant secretary (1898). Elected to Parliament in 1923, she served in the Labour government of 1924 as parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of Labour, and in the second Labour government (1929–31) as minister of labour. She identified herself with the fiscal conservatism of Philip Snowden, and in August 1931 supported the cabinet's decision to cut unemployment benefit. At the general election, she lost her seat.