My Two Countries by Nancy Astor

My entrance into the House of Commons was not, as some thought, in the nature of a revolution. It was simply evolution. It is interesting how it came about. My husband was the one who started me off on this downward career—from home to the House. If I have helped the cause of women, he is the one to thank—not me. He is a strange and remarkable man. First, it was strange to urge his wife to take up public life, especially as he is a most domesticated creature; but the truth is, he is a born social reformer. He has avoided the pitfalls which so many well-to-do men fall into. He doesn’t think that you can right wrongs with philanthropy. He realises that you must go to the bottom of the causes of wrongs and not simply gild over the top. For eleven years I had helped him with his work at Plymouth. Mine was the personal side. I found out the wrongs and he tried to right them. It was a wonderful and happy combination, and I often wish that it was still going on. However, I am not here to tell you of his work, but it is interesting in so far as it shows you how it came about that I stood for Parliament at all. Unless he had been the kind of man that he was, I don’t believe that the first woman Member of the oldest Parliament in the world would have come from Plymouth—and that would have been a pity.