Lady Hale on Lady Rhondda
Great Lives
BBC
4.2 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 11 January 2022
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Suffragette, businesswoman, and founder of Time and Tide magazine, Margaret Haig Thomas, is also known as Lady Rhondda.
She’s nominated by judge and former President of the Supreme Court, Lady Hale.
Born in 1883, Lady Rhondda was brought up an only child, in South Wales, by her feminist parents.
She survived the sinking of the Lusitania and sat on the board of 33 companies, becoming, in 1926, the first and to-date only female president of the Institute of Directors.
In 1927, the New York Tribune called her ‘the foremost woman of business in the British Empire’.
She was also one of the most prominent British feminists of the inter-war years, marching with the Pankhursts and setting fire to a letterbox, for which she was briefly sent to Usk prison.
Lady Rhondda was also the founder and editor of the pioneering, hugely influential weekly paper Time and Tide, which featured women’s perspectives and essays by literary greats from Orwell to Bernard Shaw and Virginia Woolf.
The Former President of the Supreme Court, Brenda Hale, believes Lady Rhondda's most important lesson is "that there are always new battles to be fought...You must never give up. You must always go on."
With expert insight from Angela V John, author of Turning the Tide: The Life of Lady Rhondda.
Presented by Matthew Parris.
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by r: Ellie Richold.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, let me ask you, sir. |
| 0:03.8 | Have you heard George's podcast? |
| 0:06.1 | Me and Ben Brick are back with a blast. |
| 0:08.1 | This time with stories from Africa's past, not too distant, unsolved mysteries, unsung |
| 0:13.8 | heroes from untold histories. |
| 0:15.8 | I'm trying to make sense of the present day, join me on this journey by pressing play. |
| 0:23.8 | Have you heard George's podcast, Chapter 4? |
| 0:27.2 | Who was the most recent female president of the Institute of Directors? |
| 0:40.4 | Any guesses? |
| 0:41.4 | Well, in 1927, the New York Tribune called her the foremost woman of business in the British |
| 0:48.4 | Empire. |
| 0:49.6 | This Welsh woman sat on the board of 33 companies becoming in 1926 the first and to |
| 0:56.2 | this day, only female president of the Institute of Directors. |
| 1:01.2 | As a journalist, she founded and edited the enormously influential weekly paper Time |
| 1:06.9 | and Tide, which featured women's perspectives and essays by literary greats from Orwell |
| 1:12.3 | to Bernard Shaw and Virginia Woolf, and yet most people have never heard of Margaret |
| 1:17.5 | Hague Thomas, also known as Lady Rontha, the subject of today's programme. |
| 1:24.3 | Dominating this remarkable woman is another remarkable woman, Lady Hale, whom I guess |
| 1:30.1 | many of my listeners last remember from the Supreme Court bench skewering the government's |
| 1:35.1 | attempt to prerog Parliament with a spider-broach on her lapel. |
| 1:40.0 | Brenda Hale, you've spent much of your life as a judge campaigning for women to be better |
| 1:44.5 | represented in the law, and you were the first woman president of the Supreme Court. |
... |
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