18 Facts About Ethel Bentham

Ethel Bentham, was a progressive medical doctor, a politician and a suffragist in the United Kingdom.

Ethel Bentham was born in London, educated at Alexandra School and College in Dublin, the London School of Medicine for Women and the Rotunda Hospital.

Ethel Bentham was raised in Dublin, where her father was a Justice of the peace.

Ethel Bentham made charitable trips with her mother to the city's slums, which inspired her to become a doctor.

Ethel Bentham was active in pursuing NUWSS support for a joint Suffrage-Labour Parliamentary candidate, a campaign which in 1912 resulted in the creation of the Election Fighting Fund.

In 1909, Ethel Bentham moved to London, where she lived with Marion Phillips in Holland Park, her home serving as a meeting place for like-minded women.

Ethel Bentham established a practice in North Kensington and was an expert on childhood enuresis and an early believer in what would now be called socialised medicine.

In 1911, Ethel Bentham was a driving force behind the establishment of a mother and baby clinic in North Kensington, founded by the Women's Labour League in memorial to Margaret MacDonald and Mary Middleton.

Ethel Bentham served as the clinic's chief medical officer, and benefactor, underwriting its expenses.

In March 1910, Ethel Bentham became a member of the executive of the Women's Labour League.

Ethel Bentham stood unsuccessfully as the Labour candidate for Kensington Borough Council in 1909, and London County Council in 1910, before being elected a member of Kensington Borough Council in 1912, representing the ward of Golborne, a position she held until 1925.

In 1918, the Women's Labour League was absorbed into the Labour Party, and Ethel Bentham was elected to the National Executive Committee, coming top of the women's ballot.

Ethel Bentham served on the Standing Joint Committee of Industrial Women's Organisations, of which she was vice-chair for a time.

Ethel Bentham stood unsuccessfully as the Labour Party candidate for Islington East in the General Elections of 1922 and 1923.

Ethel Bentham was finally successful in the 1929 general election, the fifteenth woman MP, the first ever woman Quaker and doctor, and at 68 years of age the oldest woman to be elected to Parliament.

Ethel Bentham spoke only infrequently in the House of Commons in her two years in Parliament.

Ethel Bentham died on 19 January 1931, at her flat in Beaufort Street, Chelsea, just after her 70th birthday, as a result of heart failure following influenza, and was cremated in Golders Green.

Ethel Bentham was raised an Anglican but became a member of the Quaker meeting at Friends House, London in 1920.