Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor (19 May 1879 – 2 May 1964) was the Conservative MP for Plymouth Sutton from 28 November 1919 to 5 July 1945, succeeding Waldorf Astor and preceding Lucy Middleton. Astor was the first woman to become a seated MP in the United Kingdom, but her reputation was later tarnished by her sympathetic views towards Nazism and her staunch anti-Semitism (she later told African-Americans that they should be "grateful" for slavery because it introduced them to Christianity), leading to MP Stafford Cripps calling her "the Member for Berlin" in a 1939 speech in Parliament. Her husband and her party both persuaded her to stand down at the 1945 general election, as she had become a liability to her party.
Biography[]
Nancy Witcher Langhorne was born in Danville, Virginia, United States on 19 May 1879, the daughter of a slave-owner, and she came to the United Kingdom on marrying Waldorf Astor, who was elected as an MP for Plymouth in 1910. When her husband succeeded to his father's peerage in the Hosue of Lords in 1919, she stood successfully as the Conservative Party candidate in his place, becoming the first woman MP in Britain. She was a strong advocate of temperance and appeasement, but her support for feminist causes wavered at times. Her witty comments, such as her statement, "I married beneath me, all women do," led to verbal battles with Conservative leader Winston Churchill, and she represented Plymouth in the House of Commons until 1945. She died at Grimsthorpe Castle in Lancashire, England in 1964 at the age of 84.