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Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor

The Right Honourable
The Viscountess Astor
CH
Nancy Viscountess Astor by John Singer Sargent.jpeg
Portrait of Nancy Astor by John Singer Sargent, 1909
Member of Parliament
for Plymouth Sutton
In office
28 November 1919 – 5 July 1945
Preceded by Waldorf Astor
Succeeded by Lucy Middleton
Personal details
Born Nancy Witcher Langhorne
(1879-05-19)19 May 1879
Danville, Virginia, U.S.
Died 2 May 1964(1964-05-02) (aged 84)
Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire, England
Political party Coalition Conservative
Spouse(s) Robert Gould Shaw II
(m. 1897–1903; divorced)
Waldorf Astor
(m. 1906–1952; his death)
Relations William Waldorf Astor III (grandson)
Children
Parents Chiswell Dabney Langhorne
Nancy Witcher Keene
Residence Cliveden and Grimsthorpe Castle
Occupation politician
Religion Christian Science
Signature

Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess Astor, CH (19 May 1879 – 2 May 1964) was the first female Member of Parliament to take her seat.

She was an American-born English socialite who made a second marriage to Waldorf Astor as a young woman in England. After he succeeded to the peerage and entered the House of Lords, she entered politics, in 1919 winning his former seat in Plymouth and becoming the first woman to sit as a Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons. Her first husband was an American, Robert Gould Shaw II, and they divorced. She served in Parliament as a member of the Conservative Party for Plymouth Sutton until 1945, when she was persuaded to step down.

Nancy Witcher Langhorne was born at the Langhorne House in Danville, Virginia. She was the eighth of eleven children born to railroad businessman Chiswell Dabney Langhorne and his wife Nancy Witcher Keene. Following the abolition of slavery, Chiswell struggled to make his operations profitable, and with the destruction of the war, the family lived in near-poverty for several years before Nancy was born. After her birth, her father gained a job as a tobacco auctioneer in Danville, the center of bright leaf tobacco and a major marketing and processing center.

In 1874, he won a construction contract with the Chespeake and Ohio Railroad, using former contacts from his service in the Civil War. By 1892, when Nancy was thirteen years old, her father had re-established his wealth and built a sizeable home. Chiswell Langhorne later moved his family to an estate, known as Mirador, in Albemarle County, Virginia.


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