A Centenary Salute To Virginia’s Lady Astor – The First Woman To Take Her Seat In The British Houses Of Parliament By Mary Moore Mason
Who would have thought that an American divorcee from an impoverished background would become the first woman to take her seat in the British Parliament? And yet that is exactly what happened to Virginia born and bred Nancy Witcher Keene Langhorne, whose election to Parliament as Viscountess Astor, on November 28, 1919, opened the gates for hundreds of other women MPs and two female Prime Ministers in the years to come.
The centenary of her election was celebrated with great flair this past Thanksgiving Day both in London and in Plymouth, Devon, the constituency Lady Astor served for 25 years. A special ceremony was held at Paddington Station to name The Nancy Astor, the Great Western Railway train she regularly travelled on between Plymouth and London. Among the VIPs on board were several generations of the Astor family. Upon arrival they were greeted by the flamboyantly-attired Plymouth Town Crier as a parade of Girl Guides carrying Lady Astor posters marched by. A reception, attended by Plymouth Lord Mayor, Richard Ball, and the Lady Mayoress, was held in the waterfront Elliott Terrace mansion, long occupied by Lady Astor and her American-born husband Waldorf; a statue of Lady Astor sculpted by Hayley Gibbs was unveiled in the parkland fronting the house by former Prime Minister Theresa May; current PM Boris Johnson later popped in for a photo opportunity and that evening there was a fireworks display launching Plymouth’s 2020 commemorations of the Mayflower’s 1620 sailing from its port, carrying Pilgrims to the New World. (Lady Astor sometimes referred to herself as ‘The Returning Pilgrim’.)
In addition to Mrs May, the speakers included Emily Astor, Lady Astor ’s granddaughter; Dr. Helen Pankhurst, the great granddaughter of leading suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst; Dr. Jacqui Turner, an Astor expert and professor at Reading University which houses the Astor archives, and Alexis Bowater, the Plymouth businesswoman who led the statue project, including the crowdfunding campaign and day of celebrations, which continues to raise money to encourage young women to go into politics, and also for a foundation set up by Lady Astor for the benefit of the people of Plymouth.
Here, and at the Paddington train station inaugural, they all lauded Lady Astor for her pioneering role in opening up Parliament and political life in general to women and noted the need for more to be done in the future. Dr. Pankhurst said that Lady Astor was the first woman to make the suffragettes’ fight for votes a reality and even though “she was cold-shouldered by all the men in Parliament, she persevered with humour, dignity, courage and resilience”. She also “worked tirelessly to unite her fellow female MPs across the political divide”.
However, she added, much still needed to be done. “Today women only account for 26 per cent of the House of Lords - and there are still 92 male hereditary peers. Seriously, is that acceptable in the 21st century? And in the recently dissolved House of Commons only 32 per cent of MPs were women – one hundred years on, is this good enough?”.
How Lady Astor Entered Politics
So how did Nancy Astor find herself in this pioneering role? And what did she achieve thereafter? A temporary exhibition in the Plymouth Guildhall provided many answers. In 1910, her husband Waldorf successfully ran for the Plymouth seat in the House of Commons with Nancy, unusual in those days, campaigning by his side. When his father died in 1919, he automatically became the Second Viscount Astor and a member of the House of Lords, leaving empty his former Parliamentary seat. Nancy, encouraged by the women in Plymouth, decided to step into the gap and it was a brave move. British women, and then only those over 30, had achieved the vote just the year before and Plymouth was a tough, working class port city. How would they take to a rich, aristocratic and previously divorced American woman as their potential MP?
But with her famous quick wit, sense of humour and ability to both work a crowd and break down British class barriers, Nancy soon had them on her side winning some 5,000 more votes than her closest rival. Among her achievements were a ban on alcohol sales to young people, the lowering of voting age for women from 30 to 21, the provision of nursery schools, the raising of school leaving age, the improved treatment of juvenile offenders and women in the courts and in prison, and the encouragement of women to join the police force. By 1924, her success as a Parliamentary candidate had resulted in 24 additional female MPs.
Subsequently, Waldorf became Lord Mayor of Plymouth and both became even more popular when they risked their lives by staying in the city and helping its residents during the 54 devastating World War II Nazi bombing raids. Not only did the flamboyant and defiant Lady Astor hold tea dances on the waterfront to cheer up the populace, she even did cartwheels to their great amusement. Meanwhile, she and her husband established housing, schools, community centres and other amenities for the city, helping to rebuild it after the war.
Her Formative Years In Her Native Virginia
But that still raised a question for me: how did my fellow Virginian, Lady Astor, develop her strong sense of social justice and what led her to the UK and marriage with Lord Astor? To find the answers I paid a visit from my London home base back to Virginia where my first port of call was Danville, the former tobacco boom town, known as The Last Capital of the Confederacy, close to the North Carolina border. It was here that Lady Astor was born in 1876, in a one- storey, four-room frame house shared by her parents, seven siblings and four other family members. Now expanded into two stories and located at 117 Broad Street, with a historic marker nearby, it is a small museum.
Here you can see photos of her mother Nancy, known as Nanaire, her siblings and flamboyant, entrepreneurial father Chiswell “Chillie” Dabney Langhorne, a tobacco auctioneer and former Confederate solider who had fallen on hard times following the American Civil War. To discover his more affluent family background I continued northwards to Lynchburg where his Langhorne relatives had resided in the elegant hilltop Point of Honor mansion, so named as it was built on a former duelling ground. Emily Astor, I discovered, regularly visits the city as a patron of its Virginia Episcopal School which, she said, was originally partly financed by a gift made by her grandmother, by then Lady Astor, who met the founder while separating two fighting dogs at a family home near Charlottesville.
In an effort to find a better life for his wife and children, Chillie moved them to the state capital city, Richmond. However, he was so unsuccessful at finding work that by 1890 they were left sitting on packing crates and suitcases outside the Grace Street home he could no longer afford. Then he suddenly became lucky – while paying a farewell visit to a private club he frequented, he was offered a lucrative job helping Northern businessmen organise railroad construction throughout Virginia.
From his newly-found wealth he bought a splendid country home, Mirador, on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Charlottesville. Unfortunately, it’s now in private ownership so can’t be visited for it was in her years here that much of Nancy’s personality and interests were formed. Both she and her favourite sister, Phyllis, became superb horsewomen which served them well when they moved to equestrian-mad Edwardian England. Meanwhile, Nancy developed a crusading concern for the poor and down-trodden by accompanying a local Episcopal priest on missions to the poverty- stricken families in the nearby mountains.
The social success of her older sister, Irene, also influenced the future course of both Nancy’s and Phyllis’ lives. Beautiful, stately and self-possessed, she was invited to be the first Southern Belle to lead New York City’s prestigious Patriarch’s Ball, and after receiving 52 marriage proposals she chose Charles Dana Gibson, the most highly- paid and celebrated artist/illustrator of his time, becoming the real-life epitome of his romantic symbol of modern, womanhood, the Gibson Girl. (A mediocre portrait of her by Gibson is now in Richmond’s Valentine Museum along with Nancy’s death mask and photographs of her in the red velvet and ermine attire she wore to royal weddings and with Franklin Delano Roosevelt.)
Unlike most Southerners in those post Civil War times, Chillie held no grudge against “damn Yankees” and encouraged both Nancy and Phyllis to find rich Northern husbands. Nancy, who had 16 proposals by the age of 18, disastrously fell for Robert Gould Shaw, a handsome, polo-playing playboy from an old Boston family, who she was finally able to divorce on the grounds that he had married his long-time mistress while still married to her. Later Phyllis divorced her alcoholic playboy husband and both women – Nancy with her young son, Bobbie – moved to England where Dana and Irene were holding court.
Nancy became not only accepted for her equestrian and social skills – and great wit – but courted by several noblemen. She settled for quiet, thoughtful, intelligent Waldorf Astor, son of eccentric William Waldorf Astor, one of the world’s richest men, who had renounced his American citizenship, become a British newspaper tycoon and philanthropist and was a member of the House of Lords. For unlike many other upper-class Brits, Waldorf, like Nancy, had a keen social conscience and was keen to reform many of the inequities he saw in the surrounding society.
After their marriage in 1906, they moved to palatial Cliveden, which was given to them by her father-in-law who also owned, restored and improved Hever Castle in Kent. Overlooking the River Thames, west of London, Cliveden is now a National Trust Property and five-star hotel. It is still adorned by the numerous treasures the elder Astor acquired while he was the American Ambassador to Italy as well as by a charming portrait of Nancy painted by her friend John Singer Sargent. Back in England, I joined the Cliveden curator, Oonagh Kennedy, for tea and a tour of passageways displaying such things as portraits of Nancy and Waldorf and information about Nancy’s famous entertainer/actress niece Joyce Grenfell. Sometimes, said Oonagh, tour participants can view Nancy’s bedroom if it is not occupied.
During her early years at Cliveden, Nancy set about lightening up its interior, developing majestic gardens, bringing up her six children and, along with Waldorf, hosting not only famous British and American statesmen but the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Bernard Shaw and T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia). Nancy also turned Cliveden into a hospital for wounded soldiers during both World Wars.
Today you can not only tour part of the house but also the beautiful surrounding gardens leading to the final resting places of Nancy and Waldorf. It is said that throughout her long life Nancy remained homesick for her native state and that in her coffin was a Virginia flag.
Native Virginian, London-based Mary Moore Mason is the award-winning editor/ editorial director of Essentially America travel magazine which is distributed in the UK and nine other countries. She recently won major media awards from the UK’s Visit USA Association and the Travel South association, representing 11 US Southern states.
- Image 1: Cliveden's John Singer Sargent portrait of Nancy Astor
- Image 2: Lady Astor addressing a crowd
- Image 3: Former Prime Minister, Theresa May, unveiling the statue of Lady Astor
