Margaret Eadie Benn, Viscountess Stansgate (née Holmes; 7 June 1897 – 21 October 1991) was a British theologian, the President of the

Congregational Federation The Congregational Federation is a small Christian denomination in Great Britain comprising 235 congregations, down from 294 in April 2014. The Federation brings together Congregational churches, and provides support and guidance to member churc ...

, and an advocate of women's rights.

Life

Margaret Holmes was the daughter of Scottish politician Daniel Holmes. In her youth, in the 1920s, she was a member of the League of the Church Militant which was the predecessor of the

Movement for the Ordination of Women The Movement for the Ordination of Women (MOW) was the name used by organisations in England and Australia that campaigned for the ordination of women as Deacon#Anglicanism, deacons, Priest#Anglican or Episcopalian, priests and bishops in the Angl ...

and was rebuked by

Randall Thomas Davidson Randall Thomas Davidson, 1st Baron Davidson of Lambeth, (7 April 1848 – 25 May 1930) was an Anglican bishop who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1903 to 1928. He was the longest-serving holder of the office since the English Reformation, Re ...

, the

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the Primus inter pares, ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the bishop of the diocese of Canterbury. The first archbishop ...

, for advocating the

ordination of women The ordination of women to Minister of religion, ministerial or priestly office is an increasingly common practice among some contemporary major religious groups. It remains a controversial issue in certain religious groups in which ordination ...

. Holmes had spent some of her time in Paris and learned French. She started school at the age of seven, when the family was back in Scotland. Margaret started at

St Columba's School, Kilmacolm St Columba's School is a 3–18 co-educational private day school in Kilmacolm, Inverclyde, Scotland. It is split across two sites and is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. The school provides both primary and second ...

Renfrewshire Renfrewshire () (; ) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. Renfrewshire is located in the west central Lowlands. It borders East Renfrewshire, Glasgow, Inverclyde, North Ayrshire and West Dunbartonshire, and lies on the southern ba ...

but moved to St. Mary's College when it was in

Lancaster Gate Lancaster Gate is a mid-19th century development in the Bayswater district of central London, immediately to the north of Kensington Gardens. History It consists of two long terraces of houses overlooking the park, with a wide gap between t ...

, London, before moving due to disagreements with the school's

high church A ''high church'' is a Christian Church whose beliefs and practices of Christian ecclesiology, Christian liturgy, liturgy, and Christian theology, theology emphasize "ritual, priestly authority, ndsacraments," and a standard liturgy. Although ...

headmistress. Over the 20th century, many British congregationalists became convinced of the merits of ecumenical cooperation. The majority of Congregational churches moved to union with the

Presbyterian Church of England The Presbyterian Church of England was a late-19th-century and 20th-century Presbyterianism, Presbyterian denomination in England. The church's origins lay in the 1876 merger of the English congregations of the chiefly Scottish United Presbyterian ...

in 1972, and the re-formed Association of Churches of Christ (in 1981). However, significant minorities did not share this conviction. A significant group left the Congregational Union on the formation of the Congregational Church to form the

Evangelical Fellowship of Congregational Churches The Evangelical Fellowship of Congregational Churches (EFCC) is an association of around 100 independent local churches in the United Kingdom, each practising congregationalist church governance. The EFCC was founded in 1967 by those evangelica ...

(EFCC); the major part that did not join the

United Reformed Church The United Reformed Church (URC) is a Protestant Christian church in the United Kingdom. As of 2024 it had approximately 44,000 members in around 1,250 congregations with 334 stipendiary ministers. The URC is a Trinitarian church whose theolog ...

became the

, a new association to promote and develop common interests. Margaret Benn became the Congregational Federation's first President, helping to shape its principle of 'unity within diversity'.

Personal life

In 1920, she married the politician

William Wedgwood Benn William Wedgwood Benn, 1st Viscount Stansgate, (10 May 1877 – 17 November 1960) was a British Liberal politician who later joined the Labour Party. A decorated Royal Air Force officer, he was Secretary of State for India between 1929 and ...

. The couple had four sons; the eldest, Michael, died in 1944 in a wartime accident, the Labour politician

Tony Benn Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014), known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate, was a British Labour Party (UK), Labour Party politician and political activist who served as a Cabinet of the United Kingdom, Cabine ...

(1925–2014), David (1928–2017), a Russia specialist long with the BBC, and Jeremy, their last son, who was

stillborn Stillbirth is typically defined as fetal death at or after 20 or 28 weeks of pregnancy, depending on the source. It results in a baby born without signs of life. A stillbirth can often result in the feeling of guilt or grief in the mother. T ...

. Margaret Benn's theology had a profound influence on her son Tony, as she taught him that the stories in the Bible were based around the struggle between the prophets and the kings and that he ought in his life to support the prophets over the kings, who had power, as the prophets taught righteousness.

References

External links

The Congregational Federation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stansgate, Margaret Wedgwood Benn, Viscountess 1897 births 1991 deaths Nobility from Renfrewshire People educated at St Columba's School, Kilmacolm

Margaret Margaret is a feminine given name, which means "pearl". It is of Latin origin, via Ancient Greek and ultimately from Iranian languages, Old Iranian. It has been an English language, English name since the 11th century, and remained popular thro ...

Scottish Congregationalists Stansgate Tony Benn British women's rights activists Activists from London

Life

Personal life

See also

References

External links