We left Margaret Mackworth sinking in the Irish Sea, in the wake of the doomed RMS Lusitania. Luckily for my tale she survived and went on to become a truly inspirational campaigner for women’s rights, political and commercial, leading by energetic example. She also became the publisher of some of the best known British writers of the twentieth century in her magazine, Time and Tide.
When Death is as close as he was then, the sharp agony of fear is not there; the thing is too overwhelming and stunning for that. One has the sense of something taking care of one - I don’t mean in the sense of protecting one from death; rather of death itself being a benignant power.
When the ship went down, Margaret found herself plunged into the water, wearing one lifebelt and holding another one. She managed to grab on to a large piece of floating wood, but then sank into unconsciousness. She had been floating for two or three hours before she was pulled out of the water by the crew of a little rowing boat. They took her to an Irish trawler, the Bluebell, where she was wrapped in a blanket and left on the deck because they thought she was dead. Later that night, after she had come to, they sailed into Queenstown harbour where she found her petrified father waiting. This near-death experience left her with weakened lungs, a terror of being underground or under water, and a dread of bombing raids. On the other hand (while it strengthened her determination to improve her swimming), she believed that it made her a far braver, more confident person and took away her fear of death.
The bravery and confidence would come in very handy as she tackled the next stage of her life: following her father into public service and taking senior administrative roles in advancing the British War effort. DA Thomas had been asked by Lloyd George to return to the United States (which must have required great physical courage from a man who had just nearly drowned) and lead the armament campaign, for which highly successful effort he was created Viscount Rhondda. He was then made President of the Local Government Board, and became dedicated to the cause of public health. However, just as he was beginning to create some momentum towards the establishment of a Ministry of Health, he was moved to the graveyard post of the Minister for Food Control. Margaret wrote ‘At last at sixty-one he had a job which stretched his capacity to the full. It killed him in just over a year.’ DA died of heart disease exacerbated by overwork in July 1918. A particular favour granted by the King, in recognition of his exceptional service, was that his title would pass to his daughter: from the date of his death Margaret became Viscountess Rhondda. However, even though the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act had been passed in 1919, the Privileges Committee of the House of Lords voted against her membership and despite an energetic campaign she was never allowed to take her seat in Parliament. No women sat in the House of Lords until 1958, by which time Margaret had died.
The stupendous effort required to win the First World War had included the mobilisation of the female population to fill the gaps left behind by the men who had enlisted. Margaret’s initial posting was to organise the recruitment of women agricultural and factory workers in South Wales: then in February 1918 she was called to London to work in the Ministry of National Service setting up the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. As the war ended, her determination to fight for women’s rights in the workplace seemed to grow. After all, she had inherited nearly thirty company directorships from the death of her father, and as one of the wealthiest women in Britain in her own right, was a prime example of a woman’s ability to hold her own in a man’s world. Most of her commercial interests were in coal, steel and shipping, but with the slump in coal prices during the late 1920s, her father’s business fell into receivership, and its assets were sold. Margaret would never again be so wealthy, and slowly spent her way through her much of her fortune until her death.
Her efforts to create and protect the rights of working women over the next decade and beyond were quite extraordinary. She lobbied the Government successfully to ensure that women were properly represented on committees and institutions such as the newly-created Ministry of Health. She started the Efficiency Club, a networking organisation for British businesswomen, and the Women’s Industrial League to resist a return to pre-war conditions which largely designated women's labour as unskilled with low pay and poor prospects. In 1926 she was elected as the Institute of Directors' first female president. In May 1926 Margaret was a founding member of the Open Door Council which was formed to advocate for equal pay, status and opportunity for women. But perhaps most crucially, in 1921, she set up and chaired the Six Point Group, an action group that focused on equal rights for women and the rights of the child.
The group issued a manifesto demanding the following:
• Satisfactory legislation on child assault
• Satisfactory legislation for the widowed mother
• Satisfactory legislation for the unmarried mother and her child
• Equal rights for Guardianship for married parents
• Equal pay for Teachers
• Equal opportunities for men and women in the Civil Service
These were issues which had not been covered by the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 and which Margaret and her colleagues believed to be easily understandable and attainable. Some could be achieved without the need for parliamentary legislation, but with women given the vote for the first time, there was optimism that laws and attitudes could be changed. She argued, for example, that if the government stopped dismissing women civil servants when they married, local authorities and other employers would probably follow suit. The first point was specifically concerned with the recent rise in sexual violence against girls, which was thought to be linked to the return of troops from the horrors of the War.
The Representation of the People Act 1918 had given women the vote only if they were over thirty and fulfilled a property qualification. In 1926 Rhondda focussed the Six Point Group on equal voting rights and led it in a new campaign to complete the enfranchisement of women, starting with a mass demonstration in Hyde Park. The Equal Political Rights Campaign Committee was then formed with Margaret in the chair. The Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928 finally gave women over twenty-one the vote on the same terms as men.
In the aftermath of the War, Margaret determined that although she had major corporate responsibilities in looking after her father’s business interests, and although she had impressed with her contributions in Whitehall, what she really wanted to do was use the power of the word to change attitudes and press for women’s rights. As a small child she had ‘published’ a family newspaper, among her directorships was the Western Mail, and she had been a prolific contributor of journalism for the suffrage campaign before and during the War. In May 1920 she launched Time and Tide, a weekly periodical with an all-female board, including Mona Chalmers Watson, the head of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, and Elizabeth Robins, the actress, author and suffragist. The first editorial explained: ‘Only one thing surely can justify the production of a newspaper – that those responsible for it are convinced that there is a definite gap in the ranks of the Press which none of the present organs are able to fill.’ This magazine would focus on left wing causes and, of course, the rights of women.
The first editor was Helen Archdale, a woman Margaret had come to know well when they worked together at the Ministry of National Service. Around this time, Humphrey Mackworth agreed to a divorce, and Margaret and Helen began living together both in London and in the house Margaret had bought in Kent. In 1926 Margaret, who had fallen out with Helen, assumed editorial control which she maintained until her death in 1958. The magazine was never a success financially, its circulation probably peaked at around 14,000, and it is thought that Margaret’s subsidy of the paper costs her up to £0.5m over its lifetime. It finally closed in 1970. But it held a space in the public imagination, and according to Wikipedia, contributors included Nancy Astor, Margaret Bondfield, Vera Brittain, E. M. Delafield, Emma Goldman, Robert Graves, Graham Greene, Winifred Holtby, D. H. Lawrence, C. S. Lewis, Wyndham Lewis, Rose Macaulay, Naomi Mitchison, G. K. Chesterton, George Orwell, Emmeline Pankhurst, Olive Schreiner, George Bernard Shaw and Virginia Woolf. As a mark of its power, Margaret was included on Hitler’s blacklist of people to be arrested after Germany’s successful invasion of Britain, along with three of her contributors Rose Macaulay, Rebecca West, and Ellen Wilkinson.
After the bitter and complicated ending of her relationship with Helen Archdale, Margaret finally found a life-companion in the shape of Theodora Bosanquet (‘Dora’). who had worked for many years as Henry James’ secretary and was now building a career as a literary critic. Dora became the Literary Editor of Time and Tide, and from 1931 she and Margaret lived happily together until Margaret’s death in 1958.
The fact that I had never heard of Viscountess Rhondda is my own misfortune. In one of my favourite novels, Winifred Holtby’s South Riding, the inspirational headmistress Sarah Burton actually recommends that her pupils read Margaret’s memoir, This Was My World, as their Easter holiday homework. In 2015 the Institute of Directors launched the annual Mackworth Lecture in Margaret’s honour, (using her married name) and Margaret’s work as a pioneer of women’s rights is celebrated on the Gillian Wearing statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square.
If you would like to know more about her life, there is a very thorough 2013 biography by Angela V John, Turning the Tide. I would definitely join Sarah Burton in recommending the very readable and enjoyable This Was My World. I will admit that these two Substacks I have written cover only a tiny proportion of her life and work. I just hope that we can continue to discover and celebrate women who lived extraordinary lives fighting so passionately for the rights and privileges we enjoy today.