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Margaret Grace Bondfield, CH, PC (17 March 1873 – 16 June 1953) was a British Labour politician, trades unionist and women's rights activist. She became the first female cabinet minister, and the first woman to be a privy counsellor, when she was appointed Minister of Labour in the Labour government of 1929–31. She had earlier become the first woman to chair the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC). Bondfield was born in humble circumstances and received limited formal education. After serving an apprenticeship to an embroidress she worked as a shop assistant in Brighton and London. She was shocked by the working conditions of shop staff, particularly within the "living-in" system, and became an active member of the shopworkers' union. She began to move in socialist circles, and in 1898 was appointed assistant secretary of the National Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen, and Clerks (NAUSAWC). She was later prominent in several women's socialist movements: she helped to found the Women's Labour League (WLL) in 1906, and was chair of the Adult Suffrage Society. Her standpoint on women's suffrage—she favoured extending the vote to all adults regardless of gender or property, rather than the limited "on the same terms as men" agenda pursued by the militant suffragists—divided her from the militant leadership. After leaving her union post in 1908 Bondfield worked as organising secretary for the WLL and later as women's officer for the National Union of General and Municipal Workers (NUGMW). She was elected to the TUC Council in 1918, and became its chairman in 1923, the year she was first elected to parliament. In the short-lived minority Labour government of 1924 she served as parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of Labour. Her term of cabinet office in 1929–31 was marked by the economic crises that beset the second Labour government. Her willingness to contemplate cuts in unemployment benefits alienated her from much of the Labour movement, although she did not follow Ramsay MacDonald into the National Government that assumed office when the Labour government fell in August 1931. Bondfield remained active in NUGMW affairs until 1938, and during the Second World War carried out investigations for the Women's Group on Public Welfare. She died in 1953; despite her years of service to party and union, and her successes in breaking through gender boundaries, she has not been greatly honoured within the Labour movement. According to a later female cabinet minister, Barbara Castle, Bondfield's actions in office had brought her close to betrayal of the movement. == Childhood and family == Margaret Bondfield, known in private life as "Maggie",〔(【引用サイトリンク】url= https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Myl_BAAAQBAJ&pg=PT183 )〕 was born on 17 March 1873 in the Somerset town of Chard. She was the tenth of eleven children, and third of four daughters born to William Bondfield and his wife Ann, née Taylor, the daughter of a Congregational minister.〔Hamilton, pp. 30–31〕〔Magill, p. 353〕 William Bondfield worked as a lacemaker, and had a history of political activism. As a young man he had been secretary of the Chard Political Union,〔Hamilton, p. 29〕 a centre of local radicalism that the authorities had on occasion suppressed by military force.〔 He had also been active in the Anti-Corn Law League of the 1840s.〔 Entirely self-educated, he was fascinated by science and engineering, and was the co-designer of a flying machine, a prototype of the modern aircraft, that was exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851.〔 While Margaret was still an infant, William lost his job and was unable to find regular work. The family suffered hardship, with the threat of the workhouse a constant fear. Nevertheless, William and Ann did their best to ensure that their children were educated and prepared for life.〔Abrams, pp. 218–19〕 Margaret was a clever child, whose skills at reciting poetry or playing piano pieces were often displayed at town events and Sunday School outings.〔Hamilton, p. 37〕 Until the age of 13 she attended the local elementary school; she then worked for a year as a pupil-teacher (she was paid three shillings a week) in the school's boys' department.〔Hamilton, p. 38〕 Local employment opportunities being scarce, she left Chard in 1887, at the age of 14, to begin an apprenticeship at a draper's shop in Hove, near Brighton.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Margaret Bondfield」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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