Blog number three in our Women’s History Month series looks at Lucy Masterman (1884-1977), a poet and Liberal Party politician.
Women today make up almost a quarter of the House of Commons and a fifth of the House of Lords but a century ago there were no female politicians in the houses of parliament at all. It was in 1919 that the first woman, Nancy Astor, took her seat in the House of Commons but would take until 1958 for a woman to be appointed to the House of Lords.
Born the first of three daughters to General Sir Neville Lyttelton and Katherine Stuart-Wortley, and the niece of Lucy Cavendish, Lucy Masterman was brought up in a family environment that strongly supported women’s education.
Lucy married Charles Masterman, Liberal Party politician and journalist in 1908. Lucy supported Charles on his election campaigns, seeing him elected as Member of Parliament for West Ham North in a landslide victory in 1906 and re-elected in 1910.
Following his death in 1927 and the passing of the Equal Franchise Act in 1928, Lucy stood as the Liberal Party candidate for the Conservative seat of Salisbury during the 1929 General Election. Writing to her mother whilst campaigning before the election Lucy noted ‘all my supporters are increasingly confident and certainly the meetings are good and keen.’ Although she did not win the seat she finished a strong second gaining 39.3% of the votes, with only 16 women in total being elected that year. She stood again as a candidate in the 1931 Salisbury by-election where she again finished second.
Writing often to her mother and father, Lucy provided commentary on the campaigns and elections both she and Charles were involved in. Whilst also providing her thoughts on various political topics such as the Poor Law, middle-class working women, the housing bill, budgets, strikes by railway workers, dock workers and miners, and often gave her opinions of politicians including Lloyd George, Herbert Gladstone, and Sir Alfred Mond.
A keen poet Lucy wrote from her childhood into adulthood. In 1912 a collection of her work titled ‘Lyrical Poems’ was published. She also wrote a biography of her husband which was published in 1939.
To learn more about Lucy Masterman you can search the catalogue of the Lyttelton family papers. If you have any questions or to arrange a visit to the archives please email us at: archives@qmul.ac.uk.