Margaret Travers Symons

Margaret Ann Travers Symons (born Mary Ann Williams; 18 August 1879 – after 1951) was a British suffragette. On 13 October 1908, she became the first woman to speak in the House of Commons when she broke away from her escort into the debating chamber and made an exclamation to the assembly.

Margaret Travers Symons
Born
Margaret Anne Williams

18 August 1879
Paddington
Diedafter 1951
NationalityUnited Kingdom
Occupationsecretary
EmployerKeir Hardie
Known for1st woman to "speak" in the British House of Commons
Political partyLabour

Life

She was born on 18 August 1879 in Paddington.[1] Her father was an architect. She had a short marriage to a man from New Zealand and became known as Margaret Travers Symons. She became the secretary to the ageing Labour politician Kier Hardie.[2]

Her employer, Hardie, was a friend and lover of Sylvia Pankhurst and of the campaign to grant votes to women. They were founding members of the East London Federation of Suffragettes which was a breakaway group of the WSPU.[3] Travers Symons was a suffragette and had briefly been the treasurer of the WSPU branch in London. Symons knew a member of parliament and she was aware that women were allowed to be escorted as visitors around the parliament buildings.[2] She arranged that she would be taken around the parliament buildings where there was a peep hole where women could see into the main chamber.[4]

On 13 October 1908 she escaped from her escort and burst into the House of Commons where a debate was in progress about bill regarding various issues related to children.[5] Reports vary about the exact words she shouted, but they include:

  • "Drop your talk about the children's bill and give us votes for women!"[5]
  • "Attend to the women's question!"[4]
  • "Address the women's issue!"[6]
  • "Leave off discussing the children's question and give votes to the women first!"[7]

Regardless, she was escorted from the building. This was an evening when the suffragettes were campaigning outside parliament. Emmeline Pankhurst was arrested later for organising the demonstration and she was sentenced to three months in prison.[6]

The stunt was reported in major newspapers as she had made history by being the first woman to speak in the House of Commons.[2] She was also unusually one of the few able to divorce her husband in 1911 for his adultery.[8]

It was almost a decade later when the first woman was to take her seat after being elected to the British parliament, Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor, who was elected in 1919 following the relaxation that allowed some women in British elections.[9]

Travers Symons went to work in Egypt during and after the First World War. She was living in London after the Second World War.[8]

References
  1. "The First Woman to Speak in Parliament was Welsh". Rainbow Dragon. 10 October 2018. Retrieved 12 October 2018.
  2. Elizabeth Crawford (2 September 2003). The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928. Routledge. pp. 669–670. ISBN 1-135-43402-6.
  3. "Sylvia Pankhurst". Spartacus Educational. Retrieved 12 October 2018.
  4. Pankhurst, Estelle Sylvia (1912). The Suffragette: The History of the Women's Militant Suffrage Movement, 1905-1910. Sturgis & Walton Company. pp. 269–270. ISBN 978-0-87681-087-3.CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  5. "Essence of Parliament". Punch. 21 October 1908. pp. 301–302.
  6. "Kezia Dugdale: We desperately need feminists in Labour, including the male ones". The Independent. Retrieved 12 October 2018.
  7. "13 October 1908: Suffragettes try to storm House of Commons". BBC History Magazine. October 2019. p. 13. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
  8. Atkinson, Diane (8 February 2018). Rise Up Women!: The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 116, 562. ISBN 9781408844069.
  9. "Women's Political Records in the United Kingdom". Centre for Advancement of Women in Politics. Queen's University Belfast. Retrieved 27 November 2011.
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