Florence Horsbrugh, Baroness Horsbrugh
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The Right Honourable The Baroness Horsbrugh GBE PC |
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Horsbrugh in April 1945.
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| Minister of Education | |
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In office 2 November 1951 – 18 October 1954 |
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| Prime Minister | Winston Churchill |
| Preceded by | George Tomlinson |
| Succeeded by | David Eccles |
| Member of Parliament for Manchester Moss Side | |
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In office 23 February 1950 – 7 October 1959 |
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| Preceded by | William Griffiths |
| Succeeded by | James Watts |
| Member of Parliament for Dundee | |
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In office 27 October 1931 – 4 July 1945 Serving with Dingle Foot |
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| Preceded by |
Michael Marcus Edwin Scrymgeour |
| Succeeded by |
Thomas Cook John St Loe Strachey |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
13 October 1889 Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Died | 6 December 1969 (aged 80) Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Occupation | Politician |
Florence Gertrude Horsbrugh, Baroness Horsbrugh, GBE, PC (13 October 1889 – 6 December 1969) was a Scottish Unionist Party and Conservative Party politician. The historian Kenneth Baxter has argued "in her day... [she] was arguably the best known woman MP in the UK". and that she was "arguably the most successful female Conservative parliamentarian until Margaret Thatcher".
She was educated at Lansdowne House, Edinburgh, St Hilda’s, Folkestone, and Mills College, California.
During the First World War, Horsbrugh pioneered a travelling kitchen scheme in Chelsea, London, which gained sufficient renown as to warrant an invitation to bring the kitchen to Buckingham Palace one lunch hour to entertain Queen Mary, who approved particularly of the sweets.
Horsbrugh was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Dundee from 1931 until her defeat in 1945. Her victory in 1931 was a surprising result and she was the first woman to represent the city at Westminster and the first conservative to be elected as MP for Dundee since the city gained its own constituency in 1832. At the time of her election Dundee had not yet elected a female councillor. She was the first woman to move the Address in reply to the King's Speech. She unsuccessfully contested Midlothian and Peebles in 1950 and was elected in the delayed poll at Manchester Moss Side, sitting from 1950 until her retirement in 1959. On retirement she was elevated to the House of Lords, as a life peer with the title Baroness Horsbrugh, of Horsbrugh in the County of Peebles, where she sat until her death.
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