Margaret Mackworth, Lady Rhondda

SUFFRAGETTE, BUSINESSWOMAN, AUTHOR, PUBLISHER, EDITOR

Margaret Haig Thomas, from Llanwern, was a Welsh peeress and active suffragette. She was arrested for burning the contents of a post box and went on hunger strike for five days. In 1915 she almost drowned in the Lusitania sinking, resulting in a fearless leap towards further radical pro-feminism. Following her father’s (David Alfred, first Viscount Rhondda) death she inherited 28 of his directorships and she was listed in the 1919 Directory of Directors as the director of 33 companies. In 1926 she became the first woman president of the Institute of Directors. Margaret unsuccessfully campaigned to take her seat in the House of Lords, but she continued to promote women’s emancipation through her publication Time and Tide and arguably became one of the most prominent British feminists of the time.