Nelia Penman

Nelia Penman (née Muspratt; 6 November 1915 – 16 August 2017) was a British Liberal Party politician and barrister.

Background She was born Nelia Muspratt, a daughter of Clifford Muspratt and Bertha Noble. in Hampstead, London. She was part of an established Liverpool Liberal family; she was the niece of the MP Max Muspratt and the suffragists Nessie Stewart-Brown and Julia Solly and granddaughter of the industrialist Edmund Knowles Muspratt. She was educated privately.

On 29 May 1947 she married Derek Penman. They had three daughters, Fiona, Alison and Wendy. The marriage was dissolved in 1974.

Career She trained as a fencing instructor. She joined the Ministry of Information during the war and also served as a station officer with the London Ambulance Service. In 1945 she became a barrister, being Called to the Bar by Gray's Inn. In 1938 she was selected as Liberal prospective parliamentary candidate for Liverpool Wavertree for a general election expected to take place in 1939/40. It was not a promising seat, although the Liberals had won the seat in 1923, they had come fourth at a by-election in 1935. During the war, she continued as PPC for Wavertree and spoke at the 1941 Liberal Assembly in favour of the creation of a Ministry of Civil Defence. She did not contest Wavertree and instead was Liberal candidate for the Sevenoaks Division of Kent at the 1945 general election. Sevenoaks was a safe Conservative seat that the Liberals had not won since 1923. They were second in 1935 when no Labour candidate stood. Labour had no candidate in place in 1939/40. A two-party contest between Conservative and Liberal would have been an attractive prospect for any Liberal in 1945. However Labour intervened and pushed the Liberals into third place;

Four general elections later she stood again at Sevenoaks, but did no better;

She stood again at the following election and slightly increased her vote share; Election box begin| title=General election 1964: Sevenoaks

Penman died in August 2017 at the age of 101.