Marion Phillips (29 October 1881 – 23 January 1932) was a Labour Party politician and

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

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Early life and education

Marion Philllips was born on 29 October 1881 in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, Australia. Her parents were Phillip Phillips, a lawyer, and Rose Asher, who was from

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. She was educated at the

Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne , motto_translation = The law of God is the Lamp of Life , established = 1875 , type = Independent, single-sex, day and boarding, Christian school , denomination = Presbyterian , princip ...

and

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...

, graduating in 1903. In 1904, she began a research scholarship at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidn ...

, graduating as a

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in 1907, with a thesis about the development of

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

. Between 1906 and 1910, she worked under the direction of Beatrice Webb on a commission investigating the Poor Laws.

Career

A member of the Women's Labour League from 1908, she became its secretary in 1912. She also edited the League's leaflet, which by 1913 became Labour Woman. When

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

broke out she became a member of the War Emergency Workers' National Committee. In 1916, Phillips was present at the formation of the Standing Joint Committee of Industrial Women's Organisations. Phillips was its secretary between 1917 and 1932. Phillips also served on a number of government committees before a woman had been elected to the country's parliament. The most significant were the

Consumer Council A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or uses purchased goods, products, or services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, who is not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities. T ...

of the Ministry of Food and the Women's Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Reconstruction. Unlike prominent suffragettes, her vision was not concentrated upon extending the franchise, she wanted state interventions in the free market to be better informed by considerations of life outside the workplace. As a leader of the Women's Labour League, she described its role as "keeping the Labour Party well informed of the needs of women and providing women with the means of becoming educated in political matters". In this endeavour she provoked about a quarter of a million housewives to take part in the labour movement and helped popularise issues such as equality for women in the workplace, school meals, clinics and playspaces for children, the fundamental value of mothering, a more humanitarian, safety-conscious, approach to the design of homes for ordinary families, and an eradication of needless drudgery and squalour from home life. Together with

Margaret Bondfield Margaret Grace Bondfield (17 March 1873 – 16 June 1953) was a British Labour Party politician, trade unionist and women's rights activist. She became the first female cabinet minister, and the first woman to be a privy counsellor in th ...

, Phillips "worked tirelessly within the WLL to raise the political consciousness of women and encourage their participation." It has been noted of Phillips and Bondfield that "although there was some tension between the two at the start, they eventually worked in harmony and shared an essentially social class based approach to women's emancipation and both were later Labour MPs together in 1929 (Bondfield having briefly been an MP in 1924)." Speaking on the need for adequate bathing and washing facilities in new housing projects, Phillips remarked: "If Labour councillors will not support us on this demand, we shall have to cry a halt on all municipal housing until we have replaced all Labour men by Labour women". Addressing women in Hartlepool, she emphasised, "There is still a lot of educating to do and we are going to begin by educating ourselves". As Chief Woman Officer of the Labour Party, she reportedly gave women extra confidence to engage in politics, and by 1925, the Women's Section was firmly established. At the 1929 general election, Phillips was elected as

(MP) for Sunderland. The 1929 'flapper election' was the first in which women under the age of 30 were eligible to vote. In July 1928, Phillips wrote to all women in the Sunderland constituency, stating that 'FOR WOMEN ESPECIALLY, THIS NEXT ELECTION WHICH WILL TAKE PLACE IN 1929 IS VERY IMPORTANT'. She lost the 1931 election, and in 1932 died of stomach cancer, aged 50. Phillips was the first Jewish, and thus first non-Christian woman MP. Nonetheless, she was also an atheist. In September 2019, a plaque was unveiled at 18 Foyle Street, the site of the Sunderland Labour Party's former Committee Rooms. It reads "Sunderland's first woman MP had an office here 1929-1931. Activist and academic, she lobbied for the rights of woman and working people. The Labour Party's Chief Woman Officer (1918-1932)".

References

External links

* * https://web.archive.org/web/20050130200035/http://www.ialhi.org/gender/lhasc-phillips.doc * {{DEFAULTSORT:Phillips, Marion 1881 births 1932 deaths Jewish Australian politicians Jewish British politicians Australian people of English-Jewish descent Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1929–1931 Alumni of the London School of Economics People educated at the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne Deaths from stomach cancer Australian emigrants to England Australian people of New Zealand descent Australian scientists Deaths from cancer in England 20th-century Australian politicians 20th-century British women politicians Australian atheists British atheists Jewish atheists Jewish women politicians Members of the Fabian Society Politicians from Melbourne University of Melbourne alumni