Ellen Wilkinson

As MP for Jarrow, Wilkinson marched with the 1936 Jarrow Crusade and presented its petition to the Commons, bringing unemployment in the north-east into the chamber in a way MPs could not ignore. Earlier she had piloted the Hire Purchase Act of 1938 through as a private member's bill, protecting buyers from repossession. As Minister of Education from 1945, the second woman in a British cabinet, she implemented the raising of the school leaving age to 15 and free school milk.