Mabel Philipson

Last updated

'Vote for Philipson' placard from the 1923 election Vote for Philipson placard - 1923.jpg
'Vote for Philipson' placard from the 1923 election

Hilton Philipson was elected as the National Liberal party's Member of Parliament for Berwick-upon-Tweed in the 1922 general election. He was, however, unseated on petition in 1923, due to campaign violations involving his agent. Although he was personally exonerated, he was also barred from standing in the constituency for seven years. Mabel Philipson agreed to stand in the resulting by-election, but only as a Conservative. Philipson was considered a natural campaigner, who would court the press, blow kisses to the crowd and sign autographs. She was quick witted with hecklers and her theatrical training made her an excellent public speaker, so even after her election she would carry on speaking at political rallies. [2] Philipson was also happy to canvass the more deprived areas of Berwick, bringing up members of the public to join her for press photographs. [8]

Also standing in the by-election were Harold Burge Robson for the Liberal party and Gilbert Oliver for the Labour party. There was significant interest in speeches from the candidates, so the Mayor had to allocate the Town Hall steps to each party on different nights. [9] During the election the MPs Margaret Wintringham and Nancy Astor, as well as Philipson, were named at "Piety, Sobriety and Variety". [10] Philipson won the by-election, taking the seat that the Liberal party had held for 37 years since the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885. [2] Her majority was over 6000, larger than her husband's the previous year. [note 2] In the Dundee Courier & Argus , her success put down to "local conditions, sympathy with Captain Philipson, and resentment at his unseating", while she herself attributed it to the support of women and ex-service men. [3]

Thousands attended the announcement of the results on 31 May 1922, enthusiastically cheering despite the High Sheriff's appeals for quiet while the numbers were being announced. Philipson was unable to speak after the result, having developed a sore throat during the campaign, she was escorted by six police bodyguards back to the Conservative Committee Rooms, where she appeared at the window and her husband expressed her thanks on her behalf. [11] Philipson was then escorted through the crowds to her hotel but was accidentally elbowed by a policeman trying to make a passage through, resulting in a black eye. [3]

Though wearing a different label
Than her husband — she's proved just as able;
and as Berwick's M.P.
Soon we all hope to see
In the House a "Big Part" — played by Mabel!

—  Limerick about the Berwick by-election [12]

Time in Parliament

On 7 June 1923, Philipson became the third woman to take a seat in Parliament, nearly five years after the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 had been given Royal assent. When she entered the House of Commons for the first time, she was surrounded by the Members of Parliament from both sides who congratulated her. As debate was ongoing, the Speaker had to actively call the House to order. [13] [14]

"Lady Astor, MP for sobriety,
Mrs Wintringham; She's for propriety,
Now Berwick-on-Tweed
With all speed has decreed,
Mrs Phillipson wins – for Variety"

— Quips regarding the first three ladies in Parliament, in limerick form. [15]

Philipson signed the roll, shook the Speaker's hand and then joined the other two women in Parliament for a long conversation. The gallery was full of ladies watching Philipson taking her seat. During the signing, there were a few comments from other members reportedly in good humour, including a call of "Cheer up, Mabel", a sarcastic "Good old National Liberals" – who had previously held her seat and a comment that Nancy Astor would soon be "on the dole". [13]

While sitting in Parliament, Philipson took a particular interest in housing, agriculture, infant welfare and women's issues. [1] Although each woman of the time spoke more than the average man in Parliament, [8] Philipson herself disliked parliamentary speaking, instead focussing on her constituency and committee work. [2] She was part of the Joint Select Committee regarding Guardianship of Infants Bill 1923. [16] She joined the Air Committee in 1925. [1]

In 1924, Philipson was part of a parliamentary delegation to Italy, where she was the only woman on the trip. There she met Pope Pius XI and Benito Mussolini. [2] [1] Mussolini had previously expressed amusement at the idea of women in Parliament, referring to Philipson as "la bella Russell". [17]

In 1927, Philipson began a movement for stricter registration of nursing homes, [18] and when she drew the ballot to present a private member's bill, she chose to present the Nursing Homes Registration Act 1927 requiring nursing homes to register and ensuring that they would be regularly inspected. [19] [20]

Outside of parliament, she was 1927 Vice President of the Electric Association for Women, a member of the Women's Engineering Society [1] and life governor of the Middlesex Hospital. [2]

Retirement

Throughout her time in office, Philipson considered her seat to be held until her husband could return, and would not step down unless he could be considered in her place. [1] Her husband acknowledged that she wanted to focus on being a mother in 1924, [21] but she remained in Parliament until she announced her resignation in 1928. [22] Philipson cited her young family as one of the main reasons for leaving, but also that her husband had decided to move away from politics and focus on his business work due to the effect of coal disputes and residual costs from his unseating. [22] Philipson's own summation was "the reason why I have held the seat has ceased to exist". [23]

Personal life

The Philipson family in 1927 (National Portrait Gallery, London) The Philipson family.jpg
The Philipson family in 1927 (National Portrait Gallery, London)

In February 1911, Philipson married Thomas Stanley Rhodes, nephew of Cecil Rhodes. Less than six months later, in August, Stanley Rhodes was killed in a car crash near Brooklands racing circuit. [24] Philipson was also injured in the same accident, losing her vision in one eye. [25]

In 1917 she married Hilton Philipson, then a lieutenant in the Scots Guards, [26] and had three children, twin sons and a daughter. One of her sons died soon after childbirth. [27] Hilton Philipson left the Scots Guards as a captain, becoming a director of the North Eastern Railway Company. [23] Philipson announced her retirement from both politics in 1929 and acting in 1933, to focus on looking after her children. Her husband died in 1941 [28] at the age of 48 at Vale Royal Abbey in Cheshire, and Philipson herself died on 9 January 1951 in a nursing home in Brighton. [2]

Selected filmography

Notes

  1. ↑ There is some doubt regarding Philipson's birthdate, sources vary between 1886 and 1887 and also 1 or 2 January.
  2. ↑ Mabel Philipson received 12,000 votes in the by-election, followed by Harold Burge Robson who received 5,858 and Gilbert Oliver who received 3,966 – a majority of 6,142.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor</span> British politician (1879–1964)

Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess Astor, 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glenda Jackson</span> English actress and politician (1936–2023)

Glenda May Jackson was an English actress and politician. Over the course of her distinguished career she received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Tony Award. A member of the Labour Party, she served continuously as a Member of Parliament (MP) for 23 years, initially for Hampstead and Highgate from 1992 to 2010, and Hampstead and Kilburn from 2010 to 2015, following boundary changes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diana Maddock, Baroness Maddock</span> British Liberal Democrat politician (1945–2020)

Diana Margaret Pearson Maddock, Baroness Maddock, Lady Beith was a British Liberal Democrat politician. She was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Christchurch in a 1993 by-election but lost the seat at the subsequent 1997 general election to Conservative Christopher Chope. She re-entered Parliament as a life peer as Baroness Maddock, of Christchurch in the County of Dorset, in 1997 where she remained until her death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennie Lee, Baroness Lee of Asheridge</span> British politician (1904–1988)

Janet Lee, Baroness Lee of Asheridge, PC LLD HonFRA, known as Jennie Lee, was a Scottish politician. She was a Labour Member of Parliament from a by-election in 1929 until 1931 and then from 1945 to 1970.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frieda Inescort</span> Scottish actress

Frieda Inescort was a Scottish actress best known for creating the role of Sorel Bliss in Noël Coward's play Hay Fever on Broadway. She also played the shingled lady in John Galsworthy's 1927 Broadway production Escape and Caroline Bingley in the 1940 film of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berwick-upon-Tweed (UK Parliament constituency)</span> Parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom, 1885–2024

Berwick-upon-Tweed is a parliamentary constituency in Northumberland represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2015 by Anne-Marie Trevelyan, a Conservative.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gloucester (UK Parliament constituency)</span> Parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom, 1885 onwards

Gloucester is a constituency centred on the cathedral city and county town of the same name, represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by Richard Graham of the Conservative Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vesta Tilley</span> English music hall performer and male impersonator

Matilda Alice Powles, Lady de Frece was an English music hall performer. She adopted the stage name Vesta Tilley and became one of the best-known male impersonators of her era. Her career lasted from 1869 until 1920. Starting in provincial theatres with her father as manager, she performed her first season in London in 1874. She typically performed as a dandy or fop, also playing other roles. She found additional success as a principal boy in pantomime.

Sarah A. "Sally" Oppenheim-Barnes, Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes, PC is a British Conservative politician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katharine Stewart-Murray, Duchess of Atholl</span> British noblewoman

Katharine Marjory Stewart-Murray, Duchess of Atholl, DBE, known as the Marchioness of Tullibardine from 1899 to 1917, was a British noblewoman and Scottish Unionist Party politician whose views were often unpopular in her party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Violet Bathurst, Lady Apsley</span> British Conservative Party politician

Violet Emily Mildred Bathurst, Lady Apsley, CBE was a British Conservative Party politician. Upon the death of her husband, Lord Apsley, she succeeded him as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bristol Central in a 1943 by-election. She held the seat until 1945 when it was taken by Labour.

Sir James Augustus Grant, 1st Baronet was a British Conservative Party politician.

Hilton Philipson, also known as Hylton Phillipson was a politician in the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennie Adamson</span> British politician

Janet Laurel Adamson was a British Labour Party politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1938 to 1946, and as a junior minister in Clement Attlee's post-war Labour government.

Philipson or Phillipson is a surname.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1923 Berwick-upon-Tweed by-election</span>

The 1923 Berwick-upon-Tweed by-election of 31 May 1923 was a by-election to the British House of Commons which saw Mabel Philipson become the third woman to take her seat in Parliament. The election was caused when her husband, Hilton Philipson, was deprived of his seat due to corruption by his election agent. The result was formally a Conservative Party gain as husband and wife fought as members of different parties. Mrs Philipson, a former actress, performed much better at the polls than her party had expected.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom</span> Females in the British House of Commons

The representation of women in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom has been an issue in the politics of the United Kingdom at numerous points in the 20th and 21st centuries. Originally debate centred on whether women should be allowed to vote and stand for election as Members of Parliament. The Parliament Act 1918 gave women over 21 the right to stand for election as a Member of Parliament. The United Kingdom has had three female Prime Ministers: Margaret Thatcher (1979–1990), Theresa May (2016–2019), and Liz Truss (2022). The publication of the book Women in the House by Elizabeth Vallance in 1979 highlighted the under-representation of women in Parliament. In more modern times concerns about the under-representation of women led the Labour Party to introduce and, decades later, abandon all-women short lists, something which was later held to breach discrimination laws.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorothy Jewson</span> British teacher, trade union organiser and Labour Party politician

Dorothea Jewson, better known as Dorothy Jewson, was a British teacher, trade union organiser, Labour Party politician, and one of her party's first female Members of Parliament. Whilst at Girton College, Cambridge, she joined socialist organisations including the Independent Labour Party, and went on to campaign for Women's Suffrage in Norwich. She became the "Chief Organiser" of the women's section of National Union of General Workers, before leaving to work as a housemaid at a London hotel, investigating the working conditions there.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Law, Cheryl (2000). Women: A Modern Political Dictionary. I.B.Tauris. p.  124. ISBN   9781860645020.(registration required)
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "Philipson [née Russell], Mabel". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/70450.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Triumph of Mrs Philipson". The Courier and Argus. No. 21842. British Newspaper Archive. 2 June 1923. p. 5. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  4. ↑ "Lady M.P. may return to the stage". The Nottingham Evening Post. No. 15295. Nottingham, England: British Newspaper Archive. 4 July 1927. p. 4. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  5. 1 2 "At The Theatres". Citizen. No. 147. Gloucester, England: British Newspaper Archive. 22 June 1925. p. 4. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  6. ↑ "From Stage to Parliament". Courier and advertiser. Dundee, Scotland: British Newspaper Archive. 8 November 1927. p. 12. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  7. ↑ "The New Mr Speaker". Daily Mail. No. 14162. Hull, England: British Newspaper Archive. 9 March 1931. p. 4. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
  8. 1 2 Pugh, Martin (22 April 2015). Women and the Women's Movement in Britain since 1914. Palgrave. pp. 144, 160. ISBN   9781137414915 . Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  9. ↑ "The Berwick Contest". The Courier and Argus. No. 21834. British Newspaper Archive. 24 May 1923. p. 3. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  10. ↑ "Women M.P.'s". Citizen. No. 117. Gloucester, England: British Newspaper Archive. 17 May 1923. p. 5. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  11. ↑ "Mrs Philipson, M.p ". Aberdeen Press and Journal. No. 157. Aberdeen, Scotland: British Newspaper Archive. 2 June 1923. p. 7. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  12. ↑ "Berwick's M.P. doing well". Berwickshire News and General Advertiser. No. 58933. Northumberland, England: British Newspaper Archives. 14 August 1923. p. 4.
  13. 1 2 "Third Woman M.p". The Western Daily Press. No. 20274. Yeovil, England: British Newspaper Archive. 8 June 1923. p. 10. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  14. ↑ "Women in the House of Commons House of Commons Information Office Factsheet M4 Appendix B" (PDF). Parliament UK. Parliament UK. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  15. ↑ "A history of political surprises at Maverick-upon-Tweed". The Times. No. 58933. London, England: The Times Digital. 8 November 1973. p. 20. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  16. ↑ "Infant Guardianship". The Evening Telegraph and Post. Dundee, Scotland: British Newspaper Archive. 1923. p. 4. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  17. ↑ "The Women Members". Daily Mail. No. 11942. Hull, England: British Library Newspapers. 11 January 1924. p. 4. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  18. ↑ "Pall Mall writes from London". Citizen. No. 258. Gloucester, England: British Newspaper Archive. 23 February 1933. p. 4. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  19. ↑ "A Prominent Woman M.P." The Nottingham Evening Post. No. 15451. Nottingham, England: British Newspaper Archive. 3 January 1928. p. 4. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  20. ↑ "Women in the House of Commons House of Commons Information Office Factsheet M4 Appendix D" (PDF). Parliament UK. Parliament UK. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  21. ↑ "Woman M.p. May Resign". The Courier and Argus. No. 22113. Dundee Scotland: British Newspaper Archive. 15 April 1924. p. 3. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  22. 1 2 "Home Ties Win". Citizen. No. 175. Gloucester, England: British Newspaper Archive. 20 November 1928. p. 5. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  23. 1 2 Dale, Iain; Smith, Jacqui; Trevelyan, Anne-Marie (2018). The Honourable Ladies: Volume I: Profiles of Women MPs 1918–1996. Biteback Publishing. ISBN   9781785904493 . Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  24. ↑ "Stanley Rhodes Dies" (PDF). New York Times. 17 August 1911. Retrieved 7 August 2015.
  25. ↑ Ball, Stuart (2013). Portrait of a Party: The Conservative Party in Britain 1918–1945. Oxford: OUP. p. 324. ISBN   9780191644832 . Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  26. ↑ "Two Theatrical Weddings". Daily Mail. No. 9887. Hull, England: British Library Newspapers. 6 June 1917. p. 3. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  27. ↑ "Miss Mabel Russell". The Gloucester Journal. No. 10193. Gloucester, England: British Newspaper Archive. 9 February 1918. p. 6. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  28. ↑ "Deaths". The Times . No. 48901. 16 April 1941.
  29. 1 2 3 "Mabel Russell". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 14 July 2019. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
Mabel Philipson
Mabel Russell Philipson.jpg
Member of Parliament
for Berwick-upon-Tweed
In office
31 May 1923 –10 May 1929
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Berwick-upon-Tweed
1923–1929 		Succeeded by
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.