Nancy Astor

About us

Viscountess Nancy Astor (1879 - 1964) made history when she became the first female MP to take a seat in the House of Commons in 1919.

She represented the Plymouth ward of Sutton for 25 years. She was also Lady Mayoress of Plymouth during the Blitz - a key defining period in the city's recent history.

Nancy was a woman of contrasts: liked and disliked by her peers; fiercely independent and outspoken yet reliant on her friendships and guidance from her second husband, Viscount Waldorf Astor; wealthy yet generous; renowned for the lavish garden and dinner parties she hosted at her Cliveden estate in Buckinghamshire yet anti-drink and a campaigner for a number of social causes.

Take a glimpse into the life and times of a person who was flawed and complex but keen to do good; who may not have had an original mind but who certainly had an original personality; and who made history by being the first woman to enter Parliament at a time of many changes in British society - changes that had an impact on the status of women and the role of goverment, all set against a backdrop of the turbulence of the First and Second World War.