Margot Asquith

by Daphne Bennett

From the dust "Margot Asquith was at the hub of the social and political life of England from the 1880's until after the First World War. The daughter of a wealthy industrialist, and brought up in Scotland with little formal education, as a girl of 18 she burst upon fashionable London like a bombshell......In middle life her writings won her renown in another field. She enjoyed the friendship of almost all the prominent figures of her Gladstone, Tennyson, Jowett...Balfour, Curzon, Haldane and Winston Churchill... After several unsatisfactory love affairs, in 1894 she married the future Prime Minister H.H. Asquith, a widower with 5 children. Theirs was a curious partnership which endured in spite of Margot's frequent absences and Asquiths unquenchable interest in young women.....Asquith became Prime Minister in 1908 and remained in office for 8 years until ousted by David Lloyd George during the deepening crisis of World War I. Removal from Downing Street was bad enough, but in 1918 Asquith...lost his seat [in Parliament]. For Margot this was a devastating blow.....Although he won back his seat in 1920.....she could not forget the humiliation...nor forgive those whom she held chiefly responsible. Asquith accepted peerage in 1925 and died in 1928. Margot lived on in increasingly straightened circumstances until 1945. Margot was an 'original', impulsive and unconventional even when the wife of a Prime Minister...Some found her wit too sharp...but to many more she was a loyal and generous friend....."

448 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1986

Reviews

[Margaret]

A competent but uninspiring biography. Partly I think I just didn't particularly like Margot, and partly I got tired of Bennett's habit of editorializing on Margot and Asquith's actions.

[Sarah Harkness]

Just picked this book up really randomly - not sure why we even own a copy - and I knew nothing about Margot, but I was hooked - it was really nicely written, and you can't help but be fascinated by Margot! she just decided what she was going to be - the wife of a Prime Minister - and canvassed a bunch of possible men until she hooked one - and sure enough, he made it! also, she must have been one of the ugliest women I've ever seen, but she never let that worry her. What a shame she didn't espouse the suffrage cause, she would have been awesome...she lived through others, and resented Nancy astor for doing it for herself...a pity

[Bw Palm]

Book is here. Hope to start reading it soon.