Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor

Also known as Nancy Witcher Astor, Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Lady Astor, Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess Astor, Nannie Langhorne, Nancy Langhorne, Viscountess Astor Nancy (Witcher) Astor

first female Member of Parliament to take her seat (1879-1964)

Person · Open Library

Born: 1879
Died: 1964
Works: 3

Top works

Nancy Astor's Canadian correspondence, 1912-1962
My two countries
My two countries

via Open Library + Wikidata

Film & TV

Acting · Danville, Virginia, US

Nancy Witcher Astor, Viscountess Astor (19 May 1879 – 2 May 1964) was an American-born British politician who was the first woman seated as a Member of Parliament (MP), serving from 1919 to 1945. Astor was born in Danville, Virginia, and raised in Greenwood, Virginia. Her first marriage, to socialite Robert Gould Shaw II, was unhappy and ended in divorce. She then moved to England and married…

Known for

The Astors: High Society — Self (archive footage)1996

via TMDB

Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Person
Country: AR
Active from: 1921-03-11
Active to

Article

Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess Astor (19 May 1879 – 2 May 1964) was an American-born British politician who was the first woman seated as a Member of Parliament (MP), serving from 1919 to 1945. Astor was born in Danville, Virginia, and raised in Greenwood, Virginia. Her first marriage, to socialite Robert Gould Shaw II, was unhappy and ended in divorce. She then moved to England and married American-born Englishman Waldorf Astor in 1906.

After her second husband succeeded to his father's peerage and entered the House of Lords, she entered politics as a member of the Unionist Party (now the Conservative Party) and, at the by-election caused by his elevation, won his former seat of Plymouth Sutton in 1919, becoming the first woman to sit as an MP in the House of Commons. During her time in Parliament, Astor was an advocate for temperance, welfare, education reform and women's rights. She was also an ardent anti-Catholic and anti-communist, and received criticism for her antisemitism and sympathetic view of Nazism.