Ruth Cavendish Bentinck

Ruth Mary Cavendish-Bentinck ( St Maur; 21 October 1867 – 28 January 1953) was a Morocco-born British aristocrat, suffragist and socialist. Her library was the basis for what is now the Women's Library.

Early life Bentinck was born in Tangier in 1867, the illegitimate daughter of aristocrat Ferdinand Seymour, Earl St. Maur, and a housemaid, Rosina Elizabeth Swan. Her father was the son and heir of Edward, 12th Duke of Somerset, and his wife, Georgiana Sheridan (a daughter of Thomas Sheridan and the novelist Caroline Callander).

Her parents brought her to England, where they had a son, Harold St. Maur, but her father died in 1869 and they never married. She and her brother were brought up by her paternal grandparents after her mother married again and her stepfather died. Her illegitimacy was a problem during her childhood but this was balanced by the education and care that her de facto parents gave her. They also gave her their surname. When her grandmother died in 1884 she was left £80,000 .

In 1912, Bentinck and Florence Gertrude de Fonblanque organised a suffrage demonstration that involved women dressed in brown, green and white walking from Edinburgh to London. His older brother was William George Cavendish-Bentinck, British Member of Parliament who married the American heiress, Elizabeth Livingston (who had two girls but no boys). Together, Ruth and Frederick were the parents of four surviving children, including:

Ferdinand Cavendish-Bentinck, 8th Duke of Portland (1888–1980), who served as Private Secretary to Governor of Uganda from 1925 to 1927 and as Speaker of Kenyan Legislative Council. Lucy Joan Cavendish-Bentinck (1889–1954), who married Sir Reginald Hervey Hoare, the British Envoy to Persia from 1931 to 1934. Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, 9th Duke of Portland (1897–1990), who served as Assistant Under Secretary of State, Foreign Office in 1944 and as the British Ambassador to Poland from 1945 to 1947. Venetia Barbara Cavendish-Bentinck (1902–1980), named after Frederick's sister, Venetia James (née Cavendish-Bentinck), wife of racehorse owner and breeder John Arthur James.

Bentinck died at her home on Marylebone Road in London in 1953.