Conservative Government's First Woman Member

An appointment to a junior ministerial post marks another parliamentary breakthrough for women.

The involvement of women in parliamentary politics was still something of a novelty for the newsreels six years after women finally won the rights to vote and stand for election. Here Topical Budget marks another breakthrough, as Katharine Marjory Stewart-Murray, Duchess of Atholl, a Scottish Unionist MP since 1923, is appointed parliamentary secretary to the Board of Education. This brief snapshot shows the Duchess just after her appointment.

As an MP, the Duchess of Atholl proved something of an uncharacteristic Conservative. She campaigned for human rights in the Soviet Union and against female genital mutilation in Africa, and resigned her seat in 1938, in protest at Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. She later spent time in Spain observing the effects of the Civil War and gave support to the republicans. She died in Edinburgh, where she was born, in 1960.