BONDFIELD, MARGARET GRACE ( 18 ) , British politician, was born March 17 1873, at Chard, Somerset. She early became an assistant in a draper's shop at Brighton, but soon she moved to London, and in 1898 became assistant secre tary of the National Union of Shop Assistants. In 1921 she succeeded Mary Macarthur as secretary of the National Feder ation of Women Workers. She was made chairman of the Trades Union Congress in 1923, and in November of that year was elected M.P. for Northampton. In the Labour Government of 1924 she was parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of Labour, and did notable work as British Government delegate on the Governing Body of the International Labour office and at the Sixth Session (Geneva, 1924) of the International Labour Con ference, especially in connection with the development by inter national agreement of facilities for the utilization of the spare time of the workers, on which subject a general Recommendation, which has proved of great value, was adopted by the Conference. She was M.P. f or Wallsend, 1926-31, and minister of labour 1929-31, being the first woman in a British cabinet.
See M. A. Hamilton, Margaret Bondfield (1924)•