by Siân Evans
She was returned on 28 November 1919 with a majority of 5,000 votes. Her eldest Astor boy, Bill, aged twelve, made a speech, surely unique in British political history, thanking the voters of Plymouth for having elected first his father and now his mother as their MP. Nancy took up her seat on 1 December, and nearly forty years later she recalled her first appearance in Parliament, flanked by Arthur Balfour and Lloyd George. She remembered in later years that, although both men had claimed they believed in women becoming MPs, they gave the impression they would have preferred to have a rattlesnake in the House.
One of the many people who wrote to congratulate Lady Astor on her election as an MP was Edith, Lady Londonderry. Nancy’s reply was frank and sincere: ‘I feel you realise what a great responsibility it is. I shall hope never to let you down. We may not always agree about politics but we will each know that the other is trying to be honest […] I cannot express myself in “Parliamentary language”, only I do deeply appreciate your letter.’2
Waldorf threw himself into other work and led an austere and self-contained life, largely dedicated to philanthropy. The Astors spent £20,000 of their own money to create a model housing estate in Plymouth to replace some of the worst slums, and provided social centres in the city for young and old, especially the demobbed servicemen returning to civilian life. The family ran a combined home and constituency office at 8 Elliott Terrace, a five-storeyed terraced house with views of Plymouth Sound. Waldorf employed the best staff to assist Nancy’s career, to research on her behalf and help her compile cogent arguments. By nature she was an instinctive advocate, passionate and compelling, but she had to be better informed and better briefed than her opponents to achieve credibility as the first active female MP.
From the outset, her twin passions were improving the lives of women and children, and combatting the scourge of alcohol. Social welfare was generally considered a noble cause, but it took courage to champion temperance. ‘One reason I don’t drink is because I want to know when I am having a good time’, she declared. However, she frequently clashed with the interests of the powerful brewing lobby, whose fortunes came from supplying the nation with their favourite intoxicants. Many a political family from the ‘Beerage’ had first made a fortune from brewing or distilling, among them the Guinnesses, the Youngers and Mr McEwan and his ward, Mrs Greville. Even the Astors had traded in alcohol in their early years in New York. Nancy chose the Parliamentary debate about rescinding wartime drinking restrictions on 24 February 1920 to make her maiden speech. Despite concerted opposition, in 1923 she managed to change the law, banning the sale of alcohol to people under eighteen; this was the first bill to be introduced and steered through Parliament by a woman.
Her habit of heckling other speakers did not make her popular with her fellow politicians. Certain MPs ignored her when she attempted to sit on the famous green benches, so athletic Nancy would clamber over their knees as though they were boulders in her path. Ironically, some had been colleagues of her husband, Waldorf, and had received ample hospitality from the Astors in the past. Now their behaviour was overtly or covertly hostile. Nancy tackled Winston Churchill, who had been lent the Astors’ seaside house in 1912 so that Clemmie could recuperate after an illness. Why, she wanted to know, was Winston now ignoring her? ‘When you took your seat, I felt as if a woman had come into my bathroom and I had only a sponge with which to defend myself,’ he growled. ‘You are not handsome enough to have worries of that kind,’ she retorted.
Nancy avoided the masculine atmosphere in the bars and lobbies of the House of Commons; she could not help being conspicuous, one member likening her presence to that of a butterfly flitting around an old library. In fine weather she would endlessly practise her golf swing on the terrace, overlooking the Thames. Otherwise she would work with her secretary in a small but cosy sitting room. To create the right impression as a female MP she devised a sober but versatile work outfit, variants of which she would wear constantly for the next twenty-six years. It was an early example of ‘power dressing’: a simple, tailored black coat-dress with a white fichu collar and cuffs, a buttonhole of fresh white flowers and a black tricorne hat. She wore silk stockings in gunmetal grey, and low black shoes with Cuban heels. Her outfit could be seen as ‘protective colouring’, blending in with her monochrome male counterparts, with their dark tailored suits, flashes of white on the breast and at the cuff, and impressive hats to add height.
One aspect of her new public role particularly troubled Nancy. In April 1920 a new law was proposed to make divorce easier for married couples. After much thought she spoke against the proposal, as she felt it would merely enable dissatisfied men to discard their wives. It was not generally known that Nancy was a divorcée; Waldorf’s entries in Who’s Who and Burke’s Peerage erroneously stated that he had married ‘the widow of the late Robert Gould Shaw’, but in fact her first husband was still alive. Nancy’s rival Horatio Bottomley MP launched a poster campaign for his magazine John Bull, with the sensational phrase ‘Lady Astor’s Divorce’, implying that she was separating from Waldorf. She was accused of hypocrisy; having obtained a divorce herself in 1903, she now denied other unhappy couples a chance to start again. Nancy was furious, although the Astors had been economical with the truth over her first marriage. But Bottomley had gone too far; Nancy’s fellow MPs showed their sympathy at the next Commons session by roundly applauding her, and heckling him.
She admitted later in life that her first two years as an MP were very stressful, until she was joined by another female MP, Margaret Wintringham. Nancy also became friendly with ‘Red Ellen’ Wilkinson, a former Communist, now a Labour MP. Nancy’s trail-blazing path was not rewarded by high office, owing to her occasionally abrasive manner. However, she did provide a valuable figurehead for various female interest groups, organising receptions at her London home, 4 St James’s Square, where women could lobby the other guests in support of different causes. Nancy made her receptions effective by introducing name badges for all her guests, with a one-word indication of their interests, a radical innovation; this enabled her guests to dispense with small talk and identify their targets. Her excellent hospitality attracted businessmen and captains of industry, aristocrats and academics, opinion-formers, senior civil servants and judges. Feminist Mary Stocks later recalled it was at Lady Astor’s parties that she and her colleagues were first able to mingle with the politically powerful.
Nancy felt that providing a forum for informal contacts was the best use of her time and the family’s considerable wealth. She would point out two portraits in her London dining room, one of the first John Jacob Astor, who had established the family’s fortune, and the Sargent portrait of herself. She would say, ‘That’s the man who made the millions, and that’s the woman who is spending them.’ Nancy also argued persuasively for the employment of women in socially influential public positions, such as in the police force and the civil service. She remarked ruefully: ‘Pioneers may be picturesque figures, but they are often rather lonely ones.’
Meanwhile the Astor family had inherited the makings of a media empire from the first Viscount, and this was to prove to be useful in promoting the family fortunes. Waldorf had been given the Observer by his father in 1916. His brother, John Jacob Astor, had his sights set on owning The Times, and after a tussle with Lord Rothermere, he secured 90 per cent of the ownership, buying the paper from Lord Northcliffe. Geoffrey Dawson was appointed the editor, and under his control the paper supported its proprietor in his second bid to become an MP in 1922 – this time, with the support of The Thunderer, he was successful and was elected as the Tory representative for Dover. John Jacob Astor never fully approved of his sister-in-law’s Parliamentary career on principle. But blood was thicker than water, as events were to prove.
Nancy’s high-powered life, combining a demanding career with family and social commitments, required the support and co-operation of her staff. She relied on a lady’s maid to manage her wardrobe and a secreta
ry to handle her correspondence and social life. On becoming an MP, she also employed a Parliamentary secretary, who managed her constituency correspondence, meetings and diary. Cliveden and St James’s Square were the centres of her social life, and for decades she depended on the indefatigable butler Edwin Lee, known to his underlings as ‘Skipper’ or ‘Skip’. Working with Mrs Addison the housekeeper, Arthur Bushell the valet and (from 1928 onwards) Rose Harrison, Lady Astor’s personal maid, these four senior servants ensured that both houses were run like clockwork. At 5 a.m. the housemaids began cleaning and laying fires in grates in Cliveden’s reception rooms; Rose would help Lady Astor out of her gown and into her nightclothes around midnight. Bobbie Shaw likened his diminutive but energetic mother to the rudder of a huge liner, steering the whole complex enterprise.
The Astors were generous employers, paying decent wages and providing cottages for the estate workers and funding the education of their children. Waldorf adored his own offspring, who were looked after by much-loved Nanny Gibbons. The Astor boys lived at Cliveden until they reached the age of eight, at which point they were sent to Eton. Wissie (Phyllis) was tutored by a governess at home. Nanny Gibbons did not approve of Arthur, the valet, who seized any opportunity to dress up as a woman for staff parties; she did not like his smutty innuendo. When she died, Nanny left £7,500, an impressive sum, of which £2,000 had been given to her by the Astor children in appreciation of her benign presence in their lives. Their restless but well-meaning mother, by contrast, would occasionally descend on the children’s nurseries at Cliveden, appropriating toys she decided were no longer wanted and sending them to the poor.
Family life was important to Waldorf and Nancy Astor, though they both had full and busy lives. Michael Astor commented:
I was vaguely aware that my mother was a famous person. As well as being the first woman to take her seat in Parliament she symbolised throughout the world the new place that women were making for themselves in public life. Inevitably she attracted a great deal of publicity because her like had not before been seen. She was a rebel and a conservative and a feminist, a new kind of firebrand who managed at the same time to conduct a social life at Cliveden on such a grand scale that even that attracted attention. She was as much a household name as later became – though for different reasons – Mrs Roosevelt, Greta Garbo and Marilyn Monroe. I knew that she was famous, although I did not then understand why this should be.3
Nancy Astor was even better known in the States than in Britain, owing to her Parliamentary career. Her arrival in New York with Waldorf on the Olympia in April 1922 caused a media frenzy. She was invited to address the Pan-American Women’s Convention in Baltimore, and the Canadian House of Commons, but she also gave numerous interviews to newspaper and radio journalists. It is an indication of Nancy’s international celebrity that the Astors met President Harding and were invited onto the floor of the Senate. The couple acted as unofficial transatlantic ambassadors, advocating friendship between Britain and the United States.
At home at Cliveden during the school holidays the children joined their parents for afternoon tea, and Nancy was usually on fine form, entertaining guests and family alike. She would act out stories from her childhood in the southern States for their amusement. In fact, mimicry and dressing up were regular pastimes at Cliveden; Nancy had a number of ‘comic turns’: a Russian emigrée, a horsy Englishwoman who hunted in Leicestershire and a vacuous lady who thought Americans vulgar. The children were high-spirited and often witty: discussing a possible biography of Nancy, her youngest son John Jacob Astor VII, known as Jakie, suggested the title ‘Guilty but Insane’.
The armistice brought new opportunities for both Edith and Charley Londonderry. They had spent a large part of the war apart, Edith based in London with her Women’s Legion work, her involvement with the hospital at Londonderry House and social life with the Ark. Charley was on active service in France till 1917, before being posted to Northern Ireland. Edith’s formidable mother-in-law, Theresa, died in March 1919, aged sixty-two, a victim of the Spanish flu epidemic sweeping Europe. She had been the foremost Tory political hostess of her era, and her passing left a huge gap in the social milieu that involved politicians of all parties. After a suitable period of mourning, Theresa’s son and daughter-in-law were asked to host a reception for the coalition government on 18 November 1919. After the conflict of the last four years it would be a harmonious gesture to host an event with the Prime Minister, Lloyd George (Liberal), and the Deputy Prime Minister, Andrew Bonar Law (Conservative). Edith stepped into the role as hostess, and the reception was a magnificent success. Many present had thought they would never see a ‘pre-war’ grand party again, although this time the guest list was more inclusive. As well as the British establishment, there were the doctors and nurses, the VADs (Voluntary Aid Detachments, who worked as field nurses) and the army women, the new Dames of the British Empire and many patients who had been treated at Londonderry House when it was a hospital.
Edith was from the very top ranks of the British elite. She was a grand-daughter of the Duke of Sutherland, and her husband’s grandfather was the Earl of Shrewsbury, the premier Earl of England. The holdings of the Londonderry family were enormous; they owned 50,000 acres of land in England, Ireland and Wales, and their coalfields in Durham employed 10,000 miners. Such vast wealth and prestige enabled her to command the highest possible standards in entertaining and fashion. Though not a natural conservative, Edith would willingly play the part of the consummate Tory hostess to support Charley’s Parliamentary career. She had inherited all the accoutrements that the role required: the magnificent setting of Londonderry House, the expertise of the servants, the fortune to fund entertaining on this scale, even the magnificent tiara (she looked ‘like a Christmas tree’, according to one observer). In addition, she had closely observed both her aunt Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland, and her mother-in-law often enough to know how to entertain the royal family and grand relations.
Charles had ambitions to rise within the Conservative Party. The Londonderrys’ Eve of Parliament receptions were glittering, packed events with 2,000 guests climbing the staircase four abreast to the first-floor ballroom. They had important guests to stay at their opulent country houses. In 1919 Charley was appointed to the new Air Council by the post-war coalition government, then in 1920 he became Under-Secretary of State for Air. He also learned to fly, and described how being at the controls of his own aeroplane provided him with an almost other-worldly sense of tranquillity and distance from his worries.
The Londonderrys were much concerned with family matters by the early 1920s. Their eldest daughter, Maureen, now nineteen, was pursued by Prince Albert, second in line to the throne and a regular attendant at the Ark on Wednesday evenings, where he had the nickname of The Unicorn. However, Maureen preferred a young MP, Oliver Stanley, and successfully persuaded her parents that she should marry him instead. While making the arrangements for the wedding, Edith found herself feeling uncharacteristically ‘seedy’. Usually in robust good health, she was initially mystified, then startled to discover she was pregnant with her fifth child. When Maureen and Oliver’s wedding took place in Durham Cathedral on 4 November 1920, the bride’s mother was four and a half months pregnant at the age of forty-one. Mairi Elizabeth was born on 25 March 1921, and Charley was delighted at this unexpected turn of events. However, his possessive mistress, Eloise Ancaster, was less thrilled and spread scurrilous rumours that the new baby must be the result of Edith having had an affair, claiming that Charley would never be unfaithful to her. When her efforts to undermine Edith were unsuccessful, Eloise was furious and sent back all Charley’s presents to her in one huge sack. It was at this point that Charley ended his affair with her, choosing to spend much more time at Mount Stewart with his wife and the unexpected but much-loved addition to the family.
In 1921 Charley was made Minister for Education in the first Ulster Parliament, and the family based themselves largely in No
rthern Ireland. Edith brought a new lease of life to the house and its rather plain grounds. Her childhood home of Dunrobin Castle in Scotland inspired her alterations at Mount Stewart. She redesigned and redecorated much of the interior, including the huge drawing room, the smoking room, the Castlereagh Room and many of the guest bedrooms.
The Londonderrys employed twenty ex-servicemen to supplement their own staff in a major programme to clear and landscape the grounds surrounding the house, which had been rather neglected during the war. The gardens had been rather dull, comprising plain lawns with large decorative pots. Between 1921 and the mid-1930s Edith redesigned the gardens, creating a series of distinct, interconnected ‘outdoor rooms’. In addition she laid out walks in the Lily Wood and increased the size of the lake. She excelled at garden design and exploited the mild climate of Strangford Lough to experiment with imaginative planting. The formal gardens recall those of Italy, while the wooded areas boast a wide variety of plants from other countries. The result is one of the most inspiring and unusual gardens in the British Isles. It was a labour of love; Edith used horticulture as a means of expressing stories from Irish folklore and mythology. There is an Irish harp in topiary and a trefoil-shaped hedge representing the shamrock. There were practical measures too. Edith was very fond of dogs and owned a wide variety of them throughout her life, the largest being deerhounds. The ornamental ponds in the gardens were designed with ramps leading from the water so that if one of the Pekingeses (short-legged, short-sighted and very fluffy) accidentally fell in, it could struggle out again.
Four years of rationing, shortages, blackouts and intermittent bombing had taken its toll on the civilian population. There was a desperate pent-up desire to travel. In March 1919 Mrs Greville scooped up her young friend Osbert Sitwell, who had been recuperating from flu and jaundice, and they set off for Monte Carlo. This was his first trip abroad for pleasure since 1914. The war had left him depressed, ill and hard up, so staying as Mrs Greville’s guest in the luxurious Hotel de Paris, overlooking the Mediterranean, was bliss. They gambled in the casino, met the celebrated dancer Isadora Duncan and enjoyed the sunshine. Their chauffeured Rolls-Royce took them on to Biarritz, where Osbert met his brother Sachie, and they planned an exhibition of modern French art to be held in a London gallery that summer. The brothers stayed at Polesden Lacey while it was on, commuting daily to London in a heatwave and returning to Surrey at night to face the outrage of their fellow guests, who deplored the French avant-garde art scene. Mrs Greville was not a natural enthusiast of Picasso, Modigliani, Léger and Matisse, but she was fond of Osbert, no doubt partly because he was an ex-Guards officer and the heir to a baronetcy.
