Margaret Travers Symons

Margaret Ann Travers Symons ( Williams; 18 August 1879 – after 1951) was a British suffragette. On 13 October 1908, she became the first woman to speak in the House of Commons when she broke away from her escort into the debating chamber and made an exclamation to the assembly.

Early life She was born Margaret Anne Williams on 18 August 1879 in Paddington. Her father was Robert Williams, a Welsh architect elected to the London County Council in 1901 and who served on its housing committee. He subsequently lived and worked in Egypt.

In 1902, Margaret married William Travers Symons in Hampstead. She became known as Margaret Travers Symons. The couple had separated by 1906.

Hardie was a friend and lover of Sylvia Pankhurst and a supporter of women's suffrage in his own right. They were founding members of the East London Federation of Suffragettes which was a breakaway group of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Travers Symons was a suffragette and was briefly the treasurer of the WSPU branch in London. She escaped from her escort, Howell Idris MP, who admitted her on the strength of her father's name, once he had led her to the peephole. "Attend to the women's question!" "Leave off discussing the children's question and give votes to the women first!"

Travers Symons was removed from the building, but she was not arrested, as the Metropolitan Police had no jurisdiction in the Houses of Parliament. The event was reported in major newspapers: she had made history by being the first woman to speak in the House of Commons. Emmeline Pankhurst was arrested later for organising the demonstration and sentenced to three months in prison.

Travers Symons filed to divorce her husband in 1910 for his adultery, and the divorce was granted in 1911.

Later life Travers Symons was still working as secretary to Keir Hardie around 1912–13. She then went to Egypt, working as a journalist and scrutinising British control. She was strongly critical of "Anglicisation": the employment, in the years around World War I, of a higher proportion of civil servants of British origin.

In 1932, Travers Symons attended the inaugural meeting of the Production for Use League, at Friends House. She lived in London after World War II.

Works The Riddle of Egypt: A Handbook to the Study of Anglo-Egyptian Affairs (1914) Britain and Egypt: The Rise of Egyptian Nationalism (1925)