Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor

Maiden speech, February 24, 1920 The first time the Commons heard a woman member speak. Astor, the first woman to take her seat, stood before a chamber of several hundred men, many of them hostile, and chose what she called that vexed question, Drink, opposing a motion to lift the wartime restrictions on alcohol. She said she was speaking for the women and children who could not speak for themselves. The theme was no passing choice: in 1923 her bill against selling alcohol to under-18s became the first private member's bill by a woman to pass into law.