Alice Cullen (politician)
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Alice Cullen JP |
|
|---|---|
| Member of Parliament for Glasgow Gorbals | |
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In office 30 September 1948 – 31 May 1969 |
|
| Prime Minister | Clement Attlee |
| Preceded by | George Buchanan |
| Succeeded by | Frank McElhone |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Alice McLaughlin 18 March 1891 |
| Died | 31 May 1969 (aged 78) |
| Political party | Labour |
Alice Cullen (née McLaughlin; 18 March 1891 – 31 May 1969) was a Scottish Labour Party politician. She was the UK's first Roman Catholic woman Member of Parliament (UK) (MP).
Educated at Lochwinnoch Elementary School, Cullen was a housewife, twice widowed, and married three times. She was a member of Glasgow Corporation from 1935–45, and became a Justice of the Peace in 1941.
She was elected to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament for the ultra-safe Labour seat of Glasgow Gorbals in a by-election in 1948, caused by the resignation of the sitting MP George Buchanan to take up the position of Chairman of the National Assistance Board.
She held the seat at subsequent general elections, until her death in 1969 at the age of 78. She was MP for the Gorbals at the time of 'The Gorbals Vampire' incident in September 1954 when hundreds of schoolchildren went searching a cemetery armed with stakes to find 'a vampire with iron teeth'. This sparked legislation to prevent the sale of American horror comics to minors which she supported, along with all the other Glasgow MPs.
A play loosely based on this incident, The Gorbals Vampire, was performed at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow in October 2016.
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