Bondfield, Margaret G.
Bondfield, Margaret G. (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, eventually 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), but she also identified with a number of feminist causes, including women's suffrage and campaigns for maternity and child welfare schemes. 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. Her deep nonconformist outlook and her devotion to teetotalism were in part responsible for an increasingly conservative outlook on problems of unemployment and family welfare. 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.
Geoffrey Alderman
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Bondfield, Margaret G.
