Margaret Bondfield: The Life and Times of Britain’s First Female Cabinet Minister

A groundbreaking biography of Margaret Bondfield, the remarkable political pioneer and working-class woman who rose to become the first female Cabinet Minister in the 1929 Labour government.

Rising from modest semi-rural, semi-industrial origins in the West Country, and years of apprenticeship in shops in Brighton, Bondfield became the first woman to chair the TUC, one of the first female Labour MPs, the first woman to hold government office (1924) and in 1929, the first female Cabinet Minister.

Most of her life was lived in the public eye, but what lay behind her public achievements? In this remarkable book, historian Nan Sloane looks beyond the public façade to reveal Bondfield’s hidden personal story, from her complicated personality with a difficult background, a private life which was either secret or non-existent, and a lifelong struggle with imposter syndrome.

Drawing on newly uncovered archival material, including Bondfield’s own diaries, this is a fresh and vitally needed reassessment of Margaret Bondfield’s influential life and contribution. A vital and timely biography that restores Bondfield to her rightful and prominent place in British political history.

Nan Sloane is an author, speaker and trainer with an interest in the role of women in the public space, particularly in politics and the Labour Party. Her books include Uncontrollable Women: Radicals, Reformers and Revolutionaries (2022), The Women In the Room: Labour’s Forgotten History (2018), In Our Own Words: A Dictionary of Women’s Political Quotations (2016), and A Great Act of Justice: The Flapper Election and After (2009).