daily coming into view’. He explained that Eisenhower had invited him ‘to send a body of Members of Parliament at once to Mavis Tate his Headquarters in order that they may themselves have ocular and first-hand proof of these atrocities’ – adding, grimly, that the matter was one ‘of urgency, as and the of course it is not possible to arrest the process of decay in many cases.’ Members who wished to volunteer ‘for this extremely unpleasant but nonetheless Horrors of necessary duty’ were asked to give their names to their Whips so a group could be chosen: ‘I should propose that they start tomorrow’.2 Buchenwald The ten parliamentarians selected – eight MPs and two peers – were drawn from all parties. The sole woman among was asked to present the Pathé newsreel Stephen Parkinson which reported their visit to cinema-goers across Britain from 30 April:

Germany’s crimes are no longer hidden from sight. At last the eyes of the world are opened. We believe it our duty to screen these pictures as a warning to future generations... Here is a woman who went to Buchenwald… Mrs. Mavis Tate MP.3

The footage is no less shocking seventy years on. Dead prisoners heaped onto a lorry; emaciated corpses hardly recognizable as human; vast ovens with burnt victims still inside. Its final, haunting shot is of mass graves being dug for the charred bodies laid out across a seemingly endless field. The only voice in the film is Mavis Tate’s. ‘Do believe me when I tell you,’ she urges viewers, ‘that the reality was indescribably worse than these pictures.’ It was a reality which would continue to haunt her – with tragic consequences.

 Men at Buchenwald who had been forced into slave labour (taken by Private H. Miller of the US Army, 16 April 1945) Maybird Constance Hogg (she disliked her baptismal name, later changing it by n 18 April 1945 General new discoveries ‘even indescribably more deed poll) was born on 17 August 1893, Eisenhower telephoned horrible than those about which General the daughter of Constance Marsden and O Churchill from Germany. Eisenhower spoke to you yesterday’. The Guy Hogg, British Vice-Consul at Monaco His troops had just liberated the first main camp at Buchenwald was ‘the acme and Sheriff of St. Helena. It was a political concentration camp at Ohrdruf. For of atrocity’.1 family: her great-grandfather James twelve days, they had encountered the That afternoon, Churchill told the House Hogg had been a Liberal Conservative emaciated corpses of thousands of victims of Commons: ‘No words can express MP (for Beverley, 1834–47, and Honiton, of Nazi brutality. The next morning, the horror which is felt by His Majesty’s 1847–57) as well as a judge and Chairman Eisenhower’s chief of staff Walter Bedell Government and their principal Allies at of the East India Company. He was given Smith called again to inform Churchill of the proofs of these frightful crimes now a baronetcy and had fourteen children.

30 Conservative History Journal  Vol. II, Issue 4  Autumn 2015 Mavis Tate and the Horrors of Buchenwald

His grandson by the youngest of these – was Viscount Weymouth (later, as the Tate’s first cousin – was Douglas Hogg, 7th Marquess of Bath, the founder of the twice Lord Chancellor and later the 1st safari park at Longleat). Lord Weymouth, Viscount Hailsham.4 Tate was also related a friend of Evelyn Waugh at Oxford, on her paternal grandmother’s side to Sir did not really take to Westminster: ‘He Walter Stirling, Bt., MP for Gatton (1799– disliked his years in the House, making 1802) and St. Ives (1807–20). but one speech there, to an unreceptive It is not surprising, therefore, that Tate audience, on the subject of tea’.10 His became politically active. Her interest majority in 1931, at 7,110, had actually was awoken when she helped her cousin been smaller than Tate’s in Willesden; in St. Marylebone (which he represented in 1935, with the unwelcome addition of 1922–28). In March 1931 she contested a a Liberal candidate, Tate only scraped London County Council seat at Islington; home by 994 votes. seven months later, aged 38, she was Aware of her slender majority, Tate elected MP for Willesden West – aided became as assiduous a representative of by the National Government’s landslide, her new constituency as she had been which helped her to turn a 7,804 Labour in Willesden. Independent in defence of majority into an 8,360 one of her own. her constituents, she also pushed herself Tate found herself one of fifteen women into accepting otherwise unwelcome MPs – all but two of them Conservatives. engagements. She appeared regularly on Tate in 1935, the year she switched from She was also something of an anomaly as the BBC’s ‘Brains Trust’, telling another Willesden to Frome (Bassano, NPG) a divorcee – a status which still carried panellist ‘that she always dreaded sitting a social stigma. In 1915, aged 22, she in a session but she did it because it had married Captain Gerald Gott of the last’.8 But such a precarious seat was not pleased her constituents … the publicicity Bedfordshire Regiment. But this ill- an ideal berth – and in 1935 she switched was good for anyone who sat for a fated wartime marriage ended in divorce to the very different Frome division marginal constituency as she did’.11 ten years later. That same year, Mavis of Somerset. Tate maintained that the A qualified pilot, Tate was a passionate married Henry Tate, grandson of the move ‘was dictated by family reasons enthusiast for aviation. But above all sugar merchant and philanthropist Sir and the health of her husband’, but it was it was the issue of women’s rights on Henry Tate, Bt. Her new husband, also certainly a smart move electorally: the which Mavis Tate made her greatest a divorcee, was a man of independent Labour Minister she had unseated in 1931 mark in Parliament. Like many women means. But there were early signs that regained Willesden West by 2,930 votes, of her class and generation she ‘was this, too, would be an unhappy marriage: and held it until his retirement in 1959.9 not originally a feminist,’ but the social when Mrs. Tate made the deed poll to Frome Conservative Association seems changes of the 1920s and ’30s – which she change her Christian name to Mavis in to have been delighted to welcome its new both witnessed as an MP and reflected November 1930, she also switched her female candidate. The retiring Member personally – made her an increasingly legal surname back to her maiden name passionate champion of women’s rights. of Hogg. Working closely with her Labour and But it was as Mrs. Mavis Tate that the Liberal counterparts, Tate ‘harassed new MP for Willesden West was known. the coalition government for its neglect With her ‘striking appearance as well of women’s interests’ – creating ‘what, as her wit and vivacity and splendid in effect, was a women’s party for the speaking powers’, Tate made an early duration of the war’.12 name for herself.5 Earl Winterton Her two great campaigns were for remembered her as ‘one of the most equal compensation – ensuring that energetic women members at the time’.6 women who sustained civilian injuries She worked hard outside the Commons were compensated at the same rate too, setting up an office in Willesden as men – and equal pay. She worked which was ‘a combination of labour diligently for both, ‘an example of almost exchange, house agency and centre for bulldozing determination’.13 She chaired pension and accident claims’ – an early a national ‘campaign committee’ for constituency surgery.7 each cause – the Equal Pay Campaign With her marginal, urban seat, Tate was Committee representing around a exposed to the many social challenges hundred organizations, and some four of the early 1930s. Raising issues such million women.14 It held mass meetings as the cost of living, maternal mortality throughout the country, but it was in rates, and birth control clinics, ‘she found Parliament that Tate was at her most herself taking an increasingly feminist The 7th Earl Stanhope, who led the delegation effective: tirelessly lobbying her fellow stance’ and ‘had found her vocation at to Buchenwald (H. Walter Barnett, NPG) MPs, presenting petitions, and raising

Conservative History Journal  Vol. II, Issue 4  Autumn 2015 31 of her character. Richard Griffiths, in his detailed study of the group, cautions that ‘many of those who joined the Right Club may not have been aware of all the attitudes and activities of the more active membership’ – although there can have been no ignorance about Ramsay’s anti- Semitic views. Griffiths breaks down the names listed in the Red Book into three categories: ‘known activists’, ‘fellow travellers’, and ‘innocents at large’. It is in this last category that he places Tate – those ‘for whom we have no external evidence of right-wing activity of an extremist kind’:

Her later public statements, after a nervous breakdown in early 1940, Female Tory MPs, 1931. Mavis Tate is fourth from the left, looking at Thelma Cazalet, Irene were entirely patriotic and anti- Ward, and Lady Iveagh German … it is hard to work out exactly why she was on the Right the matter repeatedly on the floor of pay for teachers was passed by 117 votes Club list.23 the House.15 In November 1942, she to 116. Churchill was furious: he came to let it be known that she would move the House the following day and turned Indeed, there is even earlier evidence an amendment to the Loyal Address the issue into a vote of confidence. that Tate was no fascist sympathizer. following the King’s Speech – a rare Threatened with the resignation of the In May 1934, she flew to Germany to occurrence, particularly in the middle of Government, the House reversed its effect ‘a dramatic rescue operation a war. No fewer than 95 Members voted decision and the offending clauses were from a Nazi concentration camp’.24 with her: not enough to win the vote, removed from the Bill by a large margin. An interned Socialist member of the but enough to compel the Government Another concession was granted – this Reichstag, Gerhard Seger, had escaped to establish a Select Committee to look time a Royal Commission – but it was from Oranienburg and fled to Prague. His into the issue – of which Tate naturally not until 1955 that the first equal pay wife and child were still imprisoned, and became a member. In April 1943 the scheme was introduced (by Rab Butler, a number of organizations had taken up Government announced it would accept the man whose Education Bill had been their case without success. Tate, under the committee’s recommendations hijacked, when he was Chancellor of her own steam, travelled to Berlin and got in full.16 When Tate rose to thank the the Exchequer).21 herself introduced to ‘Putzi’ Hanfstaengl, Minister, ‘she was cheered on both sides a piano-playing friend of Hitler’s. She of the House’.17  persuaded him that it would be good She employed similar tactics in the propaganda to release the Segers and campaign for equal pay. Despite their In May 1939, the anti-Semitic Unionist he agreed to take the matter up with the increasing role in the war effort, female MP Archibald Ramsay established a Führer. Not only were Frau Seger and her workers were paid between half and two- secret society, the Right Club, ‘to oppose child released, they – and Tate – were thirds as much as men, but there was and expose the activities of Organized flown back to Britain at German expense little support in Government to address Jewry’.22 The unhinged Ramsay was and met at Croydon airport by Prince von this iniquity. Ernest Bevin, the socialist monitored by Special Branch: during the Bismarck from the German Embassy. Minister of Labour, warned that if the war, he had the ignominous accolade of During this visit, Tate’s Nazi hosts took issue were raised, ‘industrial peace might being the only sitting MP to be interned her to Oranienburg to try and dissuade be endangered for the rest of the war’.18 under Defence Regulation 18B. The her of Seger’s claims about the conditions Tate, and her fellow Tory Irene Ward, members of his secret society were listed there. It is not clear to what extent they were ‘among the most vigorous of equal in its ‘Red Book’, an infamous item succeeded – but Nick Crowson, in pay supporters in Parliament’.19 By March presumed lost until its rediscovery in his study on the Conservative Party’s 1944, she had collected the signatures the filing cabinet of a London solicitor’s attitudes towards fascism, is clear: ‘One of 160 MPs calling for a debate on equal office in the late 1980s. Male and female of the earliest to recognize the dangers pay.20 When the Government refused to members were listed separately – with of the [Nazi] regime was Mavis Tate’.25 grant one, they resorted to more direct Mavis Tate’s name appearing among Indeed, in November 1938 – when tactics. On 28 March, Churchill’s National the latter, recording a donation of many in Britain were still turning a blind Government suffered its only defeat in ten shillings. eye – she was one of more than ninety Parliament when an amendment to Rab Tate’s inclusion in this list is surprising, parliamentarians who wrote a stark but Butler’s Education Bill requiring equal and does not sit easily with other details simple letter to the editor of The Times:

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Sir,—We wish to record our solemn were still alive. The corpses we saw protest, before the conscience of were merely skeletons covered with civilization, against the persecution skin. They did not look like human of the Jews in Germany.26 beings … Men lifted up their legs to show me bruises and cuts which had It seems unlikely, therefore, that Tate been inflicted upon them. Children would have supported the anti-Semitism whom we met were nothing but eyes. of the Right Club only months later. But And we were told that in spite of all this uncertainty over her views casts an the wonderfully fine attention and interesting light on her selection for the skill devoted to them by the medical Parliamentary delegation which went to authorities of the United States see the concentration camps at the end of Army, still a large number of those the war – a voyage which was to change people would die. At the time when her life irrevocably. the United States Army reached the camp, deaths were taking place at  the rate of a hundred a day. The day before we got to the camp the rate The name Buchenwald means ‘beech was still thirty-five.31 forest’. Near Weimar, this tranquil, sylvan setting is an incongruous backdrop for the The task of writing the report was More than 238,000 people passed through SS concentration camp which opened in given to Tom Driberg, the Daily Express the gates of Buchenwald, 1938–45 1937. More than 238,000 inmates passed columnist who had been elected the through its gates between April 1938 independent MP for Maldon in a June and the end of the war. It is not known Expeditionary Force, and flying with him 1942 by-election. He also described the precisely how many were murdered: to Weimar the following morning. They scene for his newspaper column: the number of deaths is estimated at stayed under guard in an hotel and were 56,000 – with some 25,500 killed as ‘not allowed out of doors, for there was Worse than any sight or sound was the SS hurried to evacuate the camp in much shooting in the streets’.29 The war the smell that overhung the whole April 1945.27 was not yet over: Hitler was still in his place, even after a week’s intensive The worst atrocities at Buchenwald bunker, and VE Day three weeks off. cleaning-up: a stuffy, sweetish- were committed under the camp’s first It was a fifteen minute drive through the sour smell, not unlike the ordinary commandant, Karl-Otto Koch, and his woods to Buchenwald. They arrived on 21 prison smell plus death and decay; wife, Ilse, the notorious ‘Hexe’ or witch April, ten days after its liberation. Even Sir a stench, compounded of excrement, of Buchenwald. Both were sexual sadists Henry Morris-Jones (Liberal National, dirty blankets, disinfectant and who used the inmates to satisfy their Denbigh), a doctor who had served as a decomposing flesh, which seemed to brutal desires. Herr Koch had a ‘twisted, medical officer in the First World War, seep pervadingly into every channel foaming mind’ and acted ‘with an was shocked by what they saw: of our heads and cranny of our abandoned wantonness [and] care-free clothing and to linger in everything fiendishness which astounded even his A busy week of thorough cleaning that one took away from the camp … masters’.28 His wife had a particular fetish and disinfecting by the Americans I think that carrion stink will always for tattoos, and gruesome tales have had not removed the general haunt me.32 emerged about the objects – including a squalor and the odour of disease and lampshade – she had made from the skin dissolution which pervaded the place This sense – of ‘haunting’ – was one of murdered prisoners. … Malnutrition was intense. Many which affected the whole delegation, More than fifty MPs put their names lay in semi-coma from starvation, echoed in the final paragraph of the report forward for the Parliamentary delegation the only thing that could be called they presented to Parliament on 27 April: who went to see this evil place for living about them being their dull, themselves. The Speaker, Douglas cavernous, lustreless eyes, following … it is our considered and unanimous Clifton-Brown, made the selection. As a us as we moved past them.30 opinion, on the evidence available to back-bencher, he had been a supporter of us, that a policy of steady starvation equal pay: perhaps this, or his observance There were still 21,000 prisoners in the and inhuman brutality was carried of Tate’s independence and articulacy in camp, and the party spent time talking out at Buchenwald for a very long the chamber, swayed him in her favour to those who were well enough to speak period of time; and that such camps – at any rate, she was chosen as the to them. Earl Stanhope, a former Leader as this mark the lowest point of representative of the fifteen women MPs. of the House of Lords who headed the degradation to which humanity has The cross-party group left London in delegation, tried to explain this ordeal: yet descended. The memory of what an RAF Dakota on Friday 20 April. They we saw and heard at Buchenwald flew first to Rheims, joining Eisenhower Much the most painful thing that I will ineffaceably haunt us for at Supreme Headquarters of the Allied saw was the condition of those who many years.33

Conservative History Journal  Vol. II, Issue 4  Autumn 2015 33 It is clear that each member of the was costing her considerably. She had group was profoundly affected by their financed her previous election campaign experiences. For some, the effects were (some £1,153) herself, and donated her physical: almost all of the group fell ill on MP’s salary (£400) to her Association their return to the UK. Labour’s Sydney each year in addition to the £5,000 she Silverman, the only Jewish member of estimated she had given to the party over the delegation, ‘came back with a throat ten years. The executive committee of infection which persisted for many years’, her Association was split over whether while Sir Archibald Southby, Bt., a former to accept her resignation. Most did not Naval commander, required an extended want to, but the ‘tremendous upheaval’ convalescence to recover from influenza it provoked caused the resignation of the and ‘near-jaundice’ attributed to the entire committee; a new one was elected visit.34 He took the Chiltern Hundreds and chose to stand by her.39 and left Parliament in 1947. Tate’s thoughts must have been driven Another member of the delegation, by the expectation of a 1940 general Ness Edwards, was followed into Labour election and the slim majority she had to politics by his daughter Llin (MP for defend. Coupled with the unravelling of Newcastle-under-Lyme, 1986–2001, and her marriage and financial pressures, this now Baroness Golding). More than four seems to have brought about a nervous decades later, she vividly recalled the breakdown during 1940. There are, effect the trip had on him: perhaps, clues to Tate’s awareness of her own health in the frequent contributions I remember him telling me about she made to Parliament about The future US Vice President Alben Barkley the horrors of what went on in mental health.40 views the corpses at Buchenwald, 24 April that camp. They are engraved for 1945 (US National Archives) Her defeat in 1945 capped a miserable ever on my mind and heart … I three years in Tate’s personal life. Her was but a child on the day when father had died in April 1943, and the long I opened the door to my father Shortly afterwards, she too was taken break-up of her second marriage finally on his return. He stood there, ill: a notice in The Times on 9 June said ended with another divorce in 1944. grey and drawn, and said, “Do that ‘Mrs. Mavis Tate, MP, who has been After a few quiet months she returned not touch me. I am covered with seriously ill with a septic throat, is now to the political fray – being readopted lice. Everyone in the camps is making an excellent recovery’. She will as the Conservative candidate for Frome covered with lice. We have been have been eager to do so – for the first in March 1946, and accepting national deloused many times, but I am general election in a decade was about to speaking engagements.41 She remained still covered with lice.” He could begin. An election report a few days later active in the Equal Pay Campaign not sleep for many weeks, and he maintained that, in Frome, ‘Mrs. Mavis Committee, agreeing to lead a deputation had nightmares for many years.35 Tate has not allowed her indisposition, to discuss the issue with her erstwhile which resulted from her visit to the colleagues in Parliament. Pamela Brookes At first, it seemed that Tate had shown German concentration camps, to interfere thinks it ‘very probable’ that she would remarkable fortitude: Driberg was with her strenuous campaign’.38 Even if have succeeded in rejoining them had she impressed by her calmness as she studied she had been in rude health, she would contested the 1950 election.42 the stacks of dead bodies.36 But there were have struggled to hold back the tide of This, alas, was not to be. On 5 June early signs of the strain she had been put the Labour landslide – and, in a straight 1947, Mavis Tate was found dead in her under. She felt moved to write to Picture fight, she was swept away by more than home at Bloomfield Terrace, Pimlico. She Post in May 1945: 5,500 votes. was fifty-four. The note she left to her To any MP, an unexpected defeat is a brother Kenneth was read at the inquest: Appalling as are your terrible blow. To Mavis Tate, who had photographs of the concentration made the House of Commons the focus As I have no one dependent on camps, they are infinitely less of her life – and was just learning how me it seems to me the wiser thing terrible than the reality we saw. to use it to further the causes in which to do to end my life. An invalid is There still appears to be a number she strongly believed – it must have only a national liability to-day, of people who wish to believe the been particularly crushing. She had only and I cannot endure the extensive photographs are fakes … They recently come through a period in which and constant pain in my head and can take our assurance that no she contemplated quitting Parliament. practically no sleep at all week appreciation of the full horror is The breakdown of her marriage to after week.43 conveyed even by your pictures, Henry Tate had left her with financial because you can photograph difficulties and, early in 1939, she told the The medical details provided said that results of suffering, but never Frome Tories that she could not afford she had long suffered acute pain and had suffering itself.37 to contest the seat again. Her vocation undergone several operations, with no

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1 Quoted in Martin Gilbert, Winston 22 Capt. A.H.M. Ramsay, The Nameless War clear diagnosis. The coroner’s verdict was S. Churchill. Volume VII: Road to Victory, (4th edn.; London: Britons Publishing Co., that she had died ‘of coal gas poisoning 1941–1945 (London: Heinemann, 1986), 1962), p. 105. self-administered, at a time when the p. 1305. 23 Richard Griffiths, Patriotism Perverted: balance of her mind was disturbed by ill- 2 Hansard, 19 April 1945. Captain Ramsay, the Right Club and British health’. Reference was made during the 3 The full, shocking film can be viewed online Anti-Semitism, 1939–40 (London: Constable, inquest to her visit to Buchenwald, ‘and at www.britishpathe.com/video/german- 1998), pp. 4, 158–160. The only connection atrocities Griffiths can establish is Tate’s support to her habit over many years of over- 4 See Christopher Cooper, ‘The first but in Parliament for the return of Basque 44 working’. She had worked hard right forgotten Lord Hailsham’, Conservative refugees to Spain in July 1937, a cause also up to the end: she was due to speak at History Journal, vol. II, issue 2 (Autumn championed by other, more active members a branch event in Frome the day after 2013), pp. 13–19. of the Right Club. she died, and only a few hours before her 5 Pamela Brookes, Women at Westminster: An 24 Brookes, op. cit., p. 106. death had written, as Chairman of the Account of Women in the British Parliament, 25 Nick Crowson, Facing Fascism: The Equal Pay Campaign Committee, to all 1918–1966 (London: Peter Davies, 1967), Conservative Party and The European pp. 99, 101. Dictators 1935–1940 (London: Routledge, Labour MPs ‘expressing the committee’s 6 The Rt. Hon. Earl Winterton PC, Orders of 1997), p. 30. pleasure at the victory achieved for the the Day (London: Cassell & Co. Ltd., 1953), 26 The Times, 22 November 1938. principle of equal pay at the Labour p. 301. 27 Dan Stone, The Liberation of the Camps: The Party Conference at Margate’.45 Indeed, 7 The Daily Telegraph, 1 November 1935, cited End of the Holocaust and its Aftermath (New the very day she died Herbert Morrison, in Brookes, op. cit., p. 114. Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), p. 89; as Leader of the House of Commons, 8 Martin Pugh, ‘Tate, Mavis Constance (1893– www.buchenwald.de had told MPs that a statement on the 1947)’, Oxford Dictionary of National 28 Christopher Burney, The Dungeon Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004). Democracy (London: Heinemann, 1946), question of equal pay ‘will be during Hereafter ‘DNB’. pp. 5–6. 46 next week’. 9 Brookes, op. cit., p. 114. 29 Sir Henry Morris-Jones, Doctor in the Whips’ Nancy Astor had no doubt of the effect 10 Obituary (by Hugo Vickers) in The Room (London: Robert Hale Ltd., 1955), that her trip to Buchenwald had taken on Independent, 1 July 1992. p. 136. her friend: she ‘had suffered greatly’ after 11 Cmdr. A.B. Campbell, When I was in 30 ibid., p. 137. it and ‘been struck down by a mysterious Patagonia (London: Christopher Johnson, 31 House of Lords Hansard, 1 May 1945, cols. 1953), p. 77. 71–72. disease’. In Astor’s view, ‘Mavis became 12 Pugh, DNB. 32 Reynolds News, 29 April 1945, quoted in crushed by depression, which by the 13 Stuart Ball, Portrait of a Party: The Francis Wheen, Tom Driberg: His Life and summer of 1947 had become too hard Conservative Party in Britain 1918–1945 Indiscretions (London: Chatto & Windus, to bear’. (Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 327. 1990), p. 205. The House of Commons had not fully 14 Sonya O. Rose, Which People’s War?: 33 Buchenwald Camp: The Report of a learned to embrace its female members National Identity and Citizenship in Parliamentary Delegation, Cmd. 6626 during Mavis Tate’s years there, but Wartime Britain, 1939–1945 (Oxford (London: HMSO, April 1945). University Press: 2003), p. 116. See also Allen 34 Emrys Hughes MP, Sydney Silverman: Rebel she had certainly won its respect and Potter, ‘The Equal Pay Campaign Committee: in Parliament (London: Charles Skilton affection. Her ‘vivacious personality, a case-study of a pressure group’, Political Ltd., 1969), p. 85; Myfanwy Lloyd, ‘The ready wit … and striking appearance gave Studies, vol. V, no. 1 (1957), pp. 49–64. Parliamentary Delegation to Buchenwald her an advantage as a public figure’.47 She 15 e.g. in May 1941 and April 1942. Concentration Camp – 70 Years On’, History was ‘a woman of considerable ability’ 16 For more on the Select Committee, see of Parliament weblog, 21 April 2015. and, although she could be emotional Mari Takayanagi, ‘ “They Have Made Their 35 Hansard, 12 December 1989, col. 901. and highly strung, ‘her independence, Mark Entirely Out of Proportion to Their 36 Wheen, op. cit., p. 204. Numbers”: Women and Parliamentary 37 Picture Post, 12 May 1945. enterprise, and vigour made her a valuable Committees, c. 1918–1945’, in Julie Gottlieb 38 The Times, 9 June 1945; 29 June 1945. 48 member’. She was never afraid to take and Richard Toye (eds.), The Aftermath of 39 Brookes, op. cit., pp. 125–6; J.F.S. Ross, on the Government – even her own, in Suffrage: Women, Gender, and Politics in Parliamentary Representation, 2nd edn. the midst of a world war – in defence of Britain, 1918–1945, pp. 193–4. (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1948), p. 131. her principles, and achieved more during 17 Brookes, op. cit., p. 139. 40 e.g. Hansard, 3 March 1936, cols. 1196–7; 23 her fourteen years in the Commons 18 Harold Smith, ‘The Problem of “Equal Pay for March 1937, cols. 2754–5; 17 February 1938, Equal Work” in Great Britain during World cols. 2088–9W; 16 May 1938, cols. 30–1; 11 than many MPs who served for longer. War II’, Journal of Modern History, vol. 53 May 1939, col. 674. Harold Nicolson was full of admiration: (December 1981), p. 652. 41 The Times, 22 March, 9 July and 7 October ‘Mrs. Tate sails like a frigate into battle, 19 Olive Banks, The Politics of British 1946. aiming trimly and unerringly at the very Feminism, 1918–1970 (Aldershot: Edward 42 Brookes, op. cit., p. 151. centre of the enemy’s line’.49 She thrived Elgar, 1993), p. 47. 43 The Times, 11 June 1947 on the battle. It seems somehow fitting, 20 Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Women in 44 ibid. therefore, that her fate was sealed not in Twentieth-Century Britain: Social, Cultural 45 The Glasgow Herald, 6 June 1947. and Political Change, (Abingdon: Routledge, 46 Hansard, 5 June 1947, col. 393. the midst of battle, but on the terrifying 2014), p. 270. 47 Pugh, DNB. cusp of peace. 21 For more, see Harold L. Smith, ‘The Politics 48 Brookes, op. cit., p. 151. of Conservative Reform: The Equal Pay 49 Harold Nicolson, ‘Women in Parliament’, for Equal Work Issue, 1945–1955’, The The Spectator, 12 February 1943, reprinted Stephen Parkinson is director of Historical Journal, vol. 35, no. 2 (1992), in Friday Mornings 1941–1944 (London: the Conservative History Group. pp. 401–415. Constable, 1944), p. 126.

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