Margaret Bondfield (born March 17, 1873, Chard, Somerset, England - died June 16, 1953, Sanderstead, Surrey) was a trade-union leader and the first woman to attain Cabinet rank in Great Britain.
For more information see: Chard Museum

The Margaret Bondfield Statue Group is a cross community initiative to raise public funds to commission and have built a statue of Margaret Bondfield to stand in the town.

Chard born, Margaret’s contribution to women’s rights has largely been forgotten. Our aim, as a group, is to raise Margaret’s profile, both locally and nationally by giving talks and running events over the next 5 years to culminate in celebrating the centenary of Margaret’s appointment as the first woman Cabinet Minister and Privy Councillor in 1929 by erecting a statue of Margaret in her home town of Chard.

Margaret was born in 1873 into a working class family, her father working as a chargehand at a local lace factory. She trained to be a shop assistant. Appalled by the wretched living and working conditions of shop assistants she joined the newly formed Shop Assistants Union and was soon elected to the Union District Council. She became recognised as a leading authority on shop workers and worked tirelessly to improve the rights of women, reporting to Parliamentary Committees.

She progressed through the trade union movement to be elected to the General Council of the TUC in 1918 and then its President in 1923, the first woman to do so. She became a Labour MP in 1923 and 1926 and in 1929 Ramsay MacDonald appointed her as Minister of Labour.

After serving as an MP, she returned to Union work and travelled widely to the USA, Canada and Mexico studying working conditions. In World War 2 as Chair of the Hygiene Committee of the Women’s Group on Public Welfare she was in charge of an investigation into the problems that arose from the large-scale evacuation of city children, who were found to be undernourished and in poor health. The report published in 1943, as “Our Towns: a Close-up” helped inform the social reforms of the 1945 Labour Government, recommending nursery education, a minimum wage, child allowances and a national health service. All of which we have today.

Margaret was described as a warm and affectionate woman and her boundless energy, courage and pragmatism was dedicated to empowering working class women by improving their social and political rights and is a role model for us all.