A Most Independent Member’: Eleanor Rathbone MP (1872-1946), by Dr Susan
Cohen
The subject
of this year’s Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art’s International
Women’s Day Lecture was the fabulously feisty Eleanor Rathbone.
Rathbone is
an unsung heroine of the twentieth century and this year marks the 70th
anniversary of her death.
We enjoyed a
fascinating lecture from Dr Susan Cohen, historian and author of ‘Rescue the
Perishing: Eleanor Rathbone and the Refugees’ (2010) and co-founder of the Remembering
Eleanor Rathbone Group.
Dr Cohen's talk revealed a most remarkable woman, celebrating
Eleanor Rathbone's life and embracing her diverse humanitarian activism.
As an
independent MP Eleanor Rathbone argued tirelessly for a family allowance paid
direct to mothers and saw this become law in 1945.