Florence Beatrice Paton (''née'' Widdowson; 1 June 1891 – 12 October 1976) was a Labour Party politician in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, and a Member of Parliament (MP) from

1945 1945 marked the end of World War II, the fall of Nazi Germany, and the Empire of Japan. It is also the year concentration camps were liberated and the only year in which atomic weapons have been used in combat. Events World War II will be ...

1950 Events January * January 1 – The International Police Association (IPA) – the largest police organization in the world – is formed. * January 5 – 1950 Sverdlovsk plane crash, Sverdlovsk plane crash: ''Aeroflot'' Lisunov Li-2 ...

Early life

She was born in

Taunton Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England. It is a market town and has a Minster (church), minster church. Its population in 2011 was 64,621. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century priory, monastic foundation, owned by the ...

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

, where her father was a railway guard. The family moved to

Wolverhampton Wolverhampton ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands of England. Located around 12 miles (20 km) north of Birmingham, it forms the northwestern part of the West Midlands conurbation, with the towns of ...

, where she later became a schoolteacher. A

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

lay preacher, she was initially a Liberal, but joined the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberal Party (UK), Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse work ...

(ILP) in 1917.

Electoral history

Under her maiden name of Florence Widdowson, she first stood for

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

at the Cheltenham by-election in 1928, and at the 1929 general election, she contested the

Rushcliffe Rushcliffe is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in south Nottinghamshire, England. Its council is based in West Bridgford. The borough also includes the towns of Bingh ...

constituency in

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated ''Notts.'') is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. The county is bordered by South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. Th ...

. After her marriage in 1930 to the future Labour MP John Paton, she stood again in Rushcliffe in

1931 Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 – Sir I ...

. When the ILP split from Labour in 1932, John and Florence Paton stayed with the ILP. They left the following year, and rejoined the Labour Party, but by then the Rushcliffe

Constituency Labour Party A constituency Labour Party (CLP) is an organisation of members of the British Labour Party who live in a particular parliamentary constituency. In England and Wales, CLP boundaries coincide with those for UK parliamentary constituencies. In Sc ...

had selected H. J. Cadogan as its

prospective parliamentary candidate In British politics, a prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) is a candidate selected by political parties to contest under individual Westminster constituencies in advance of a general election. The term originally came into use because of ...

. She was reselected as candidate only after Cadogan had been defeated in the 1934 by-election and at the 1935 general election. She won the Rushcliffe seat at the 1945 general election, but after boundary changes in 1950, she stood at the 1950 general election in the new Carlton constituency. She lost by only 395 votes to the Conservative Party candidate Kenneth Pickthorn, and although she stood again in

1951 Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the Uni ...

and

1955 Events January * January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama. * January 17 – , the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut. * January 18– 20 – Battle of Yijian ...

, Pickthorn increased his majority on each occasion.

In Parliament

At the start of the 1946-47 session of Parliament, she was nominated by the Speaker to the Chairmen's Panel of Members to act as temporary chairmen of committees of the whole House and chairmen of standing committees. During a supply day debate on Scottish civil aviation estimates on 31 May 1948, she became the first woman to preside over the whole

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

. She did not, however, sit in the Speaker's Chair. When the House is in committee, the chairman sits at the table, rather than in the Speaker's Chair; the first woman to occupy the Speaker's Chair was the Conservative Party MP Betty Harvie Anderson (Conservative), on 2 July 1970, who took the Chair during the debate on the Queen's Speech.Women in the House of Commons
, House of Commons Information Office, Members series Factsheet M04 In 1947, she was a British delegate to the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

After Parliament

From 1955 to 1958, Paton was a member of the

Royal Commission A royal commission is a major ad-hoc formal public inquiry into a defined issue in some monarchies. They have been held in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Malaysia, Mauritius and Saudi Arabia. In republics an equi ...

common land Common land is collective land (sometimes only open to those whose nation governs the land) in which all persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect wood, or to cut turf for fuel. A person ...

. She died in Wolverhampton on 12 October 1976. Her husband

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...

, who had held his parliamentary seat until 1964, died two months later.

References

External links

*
Florence Beatrice Paton
portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, London