S1E132 - The forgotten pioneer: Who was Margaret Bondfield, Britain’s first female Cabinet Minister?

Why is Britain’s first female cabinet minister almost invisible in our political memory?

In this episode we are joined by historian and author Nan Sloane, whose new biography of Margaret Bondfield has just been published, to uncover the remarkable and largely forgotten story of this pioneering figure.

Bondfield – a working-class trade unionist – became the first woman to serve in the British Cabinet yet is rarely mentioned alongside figures such as Nancy Astor or Ellen Wilkinson.

She did not enter politics through the suffrage movement. Instead, she rose through the male-d...