Eleanor Rathbone

Eleanor Florence Rathbone ( born May 12, 1872 in London, † January 2, 1946 in London) was a British non-party politician and women's rights activist.

Life

Eleanor Rathbone came of as merchants and ship owners to prosperity reached Liverpool Rathbone family. Her father, William Rathbone VI, was a liberal Democratic politician who had made a name for himself as a social reformer. She was related to the Hollywood star Basil Rathbone. Eleanor Rathbone grew up in London. In the Somerville College, Oxford, she studied Literae Humaniores (classical classical studies ).

After obtaining her university degree Eleanor moved to Liverpool. There she created with her father a study of the working conditions in the Liverpool docks and engaged in the university. From 1909 to 1935 Eleanor Rathbone was a member of Liverpool City Council. Eleanor Rathbone was at this time, the first woman to be elected to the city council.

From 1929 until her death, Eleanor Rathbone was non-party member of parliament for the English universities. In this role, she was instrumental, among others, to the so-called Family Allowances Act (1945 ), who introduced a form of child benefit in the UK for the first time. Eleanor Rathbone was also known as an early warning voice against the Nazi regime. She believed that a containment of National Socialism could only be achieved by closed moral Contrary kicking. The appeasement policy of the then British government refused them therefore.

Work

• Eleanor Rathbone, War can be averted: the achievability of collective security. Victor Gollancz, London 1938