Edith Summerskill: The Life and Times of a Pioneering Feminist Labour MP

Dr. Edith Summerskill was a pioneering female politician, feminist, physician, campaigner, and writer who served in Clement Attlee's post-war Labour government and oversaw the National Insurance scheme. Labour MEP Mary Honeyball has written the first biography of this remarkable early pioneer for women in politics, highlighting her direct campaigning and achievements in securing equal rights for housewives and divorced women over property.

Format: Hardback
Length: 280 pages
Publication date: 14 July 2022
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

An Independent Book of the Month Edith Summerskill was a remarkable politician, feminist, physician, campaigner and writer. At a time when there were few powerful women in public life, Dr Edith, as she was known, served in Clement Attlee's transformational post-war Labour government and oversaw the National Insurance scheme which solidified the welfare state in Britain. Here, Labour MEP Mary Honeyball, provides the first biography of this remarkable early pioneer for women in politics.

Honeyball shows how Edith Summerskill's direct campaigning was instrumental in promoting women's causes throughout her life and lays out her remarkable achievements in securing the equal rights of housewives and divorced women over property. This is an uplifting and enlightening account of a forgotten Labour hero.

Weight: 608g
Dimension: 241 x 165 x 29 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350252424