Person - Nancy Astor by John Singer Sargent (Cliveden) -first woman MP postcard

• Postcard

   

• Picture / Image:  Nancy Astor by John Singer Sargent at Cliveden, Buckinghamshire
• Publisher: The National Trust
• Postally used: no
• Stamp:  n/a
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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess Astor, CH (19 May 1879 – 2 May 1964) was the first female Member of Parliament to take her seat.

She was an American citizen who moved to England at age 26. She made a second marriage to Waldorf Astor as a young woman in England. After he succeeded to the peerage and entered the House of Lords, she entered politics, in 1919 winning his former seat in Plymouth and becoming the first woman to sit as a Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons.^{[Note 1]} Her first husband was an American citizen, Robert Gould Shaw II, and they divorced. She served in Parliament as a member of the Conservative Party for Plymouth Sutton until 1945, when she was persuaded to step down.

Nancy Witcher Langhorne was born at the Langhorne House in Danville, Virginia.^[1] She was the eighth of eleven children born to railroad businessman Chiswell Dabney Langhorne and his wife Nancy Witcher Keene.^[2] Following the abolition of slavery, Chiswell struggled to make his operations profitable, and with the destruction of the war, the family lived in near-poverty for several years before Nancy was born. After her birth, her father gained a job as a tobacco auctioneer in Danville, the center of bright leaf tobacco and a major marketing and processing center.

In 1874, he won a construction contract with the Chespeake and Ohio Railroad, using former contacts from his service in the Civil War. By 1892, when Nancy was thirteen years old, her father had re-established his wealth and built a sizeable home.^[3][4] Chiswell Langhorne later moved his family to an estate, known as Mirador, in Albemarle County, Virginia.

Nancy Langhorne had four sisters and three brothers who survived childhood. All of the sisters were known for their beauty; Nancy and her sister Irene both attended a finishing school in New York City. There Nancy met her first husband, socialite Robert Gould Shaw II, a first cousin of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, who commanded the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the first unit in the Union Army to be composed of African Americans. They married in New York City on 27 October 1897, when she was 18.

The marriage was unhappy. Shaw's friends said Nancy became puritanical and rigid after marriage; her friends said that Shaw was an abusive alcoholic. During their four-year marriage, they had one son, Robert Gould Shaw III (called Bobby). Nancy left Shaw numerous times during their marriage, the first during their honeymoon. In 1903, Nancy's mother died; at that time, Nancy Shaw gained a divorce and moved back to Mirador to try to run her father's household, but was unsuccessful.^[5]

Nancy Shaw took a tour of England and fell in love with the country. Since she had been so happy there, her father suggested that she move to England. Seeing she was reluctant, her father said this was also her mother's wish; he suggested she take her younger sister Phyllis. Nancy and Phyllis moved together to England in 1905. Their older sister Irene had married the artist Charles Dana Gibson and became a model for his Gibson Girls.

Nancy Shaw had already become known in English society as an interesting and witty American, at a time when numerous wealthy young American women had married into the aristocracy. Her tendency to be saucy in conversation, yet religiously devout and almost prudish in behavior, confused many of the English men but pleased some of the older socialites. Nancy also began to show her skill at winning over critics. She was once asked by an English woman, "Have you come to get our husbands?" Her unexpected response, "If you knew the trouble I had getting rid of mine....." charmed her listeners and displayed the wit for which she became known.^[6]

aristocratic style.

The couple were well matched, as they were both American expatriates with similar temperaments. They were of the same age, born the same day, 19 May 1879. Astor shared some of Nancy's moral attitudes, and had a heart condition that may have contributed to his restraint.

After the marriage, the Astor couple moved into Cliveden, a lavish estate in Buckinghamshire on the River Thames that was a wedding gift from Astor's father.^[7] Nancy Astor developed as a prominent hostess for the social elite. The Astors also owned a grand London house, No. 4 St. James's Square, which is now the premises of the Naval & Military Club. A blue plaque unveiled in 1987 commemorates Astor at St. James's Square.^[8] Through her many social connections, Lady Astor became involved in a political circle called Milner's Kindergarten. Considered liberal in their age, the group advocated unity and equality among English-speaking people and a continuance or expansion of British imperialism.