Susan Lawrence

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(Arabella) Susan Lawrence (12 August 1871 – 25 October 1947) was a British Labour Party politician, one of the first female Labour MPs.

Lawrence was the daughter of Nathaniel Lawrence, a wealthy solicitor, and Laura Bacon. She was educated in London and at Newnham College, Cambridge. Originally a Conservative, she was a member of the London County Council 1910 - 1912 as a Conservative and, after coming under the influence of Beatrice Webb and Sidney Webb, a Labour member of the council from 1913 - 1927, deputy chairman of the LCC 1925-26.

As a member of the local council in Poplar, London 1919 - 1924, led at the time by George Lansbury, Lawrence was part of the Labour group that defied central government and refused to set a rate arguing that the poverty in the area meant the poor were being asked to pay for the poor. Lawrence was imprisoned for five weeks in Holloway Prison in 1921 but ultimately she and her fellow councillors' campaign succeeded in that government passed a law to equalise Poor Law rates.

Lawrence first stood, unsuccessfully, for Parliament at Camberwell North West at a by-election in 1920, but won East Ham North in the 1923 election which saw the first Labour government take office in the January of the following year. She was one of the first three female Labour MPs alongside Dorothy Jewson and Margaret Bondfield, and was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the President of the Board of Education. The minority government lasted only nine months and following the Zinoviev letter, the Labour Party was defeated in the election of October 1924 and Lawrence was personally defeated. However, her Conservative victor, Charles Williamson Crook, died only 18 months later and Lawrence was easily re-elected at a by-election in April 1926.

Susan Lawrence was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health in the second Labour Government after 1929. She was also chair of the Labour Party Conference in Llandudno in 1930 - the first woman to do so. Like the vast majority of Labour MPs in Parliament, she refused to take part in Ramsay MacDonald's National Government in the summer of 1931 and she lost her seat in the 1931 general election and was never again a Member of Parliament.

Maintaining her work in the Labour Party, Lawrence was a member of the executive until 1941 and devoted a lot of her time to working with the blind up until her death in 1947.

[edit] References

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Charles Williamson Crook		 Member of Parliament for East Ham North
1923–1924		 Succeeded by
Charles Williamson Crook
Preceded by
Charles Williamson Crook		 Member of Parliament for East Ham North
1926–1931		 Succeeded by
John Mayhew
Political offices
Preceded by
Herbert Morrison		 Chair of the Labour Party
1929–1930		 Succeeded by
Stanley Hirst