Biographies

Mary Hamilton

Mary Hamilton, the daughter of Robert Adamson and Daisy Duncan, was born in 1882. Robert Adamson came from a poor, working-class family, but he eventually became Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at Glasgow University. Mary's mother came from a Quaker family and had been one of the first women to become a student at Newnham College, Cambridge.

Robert and Daisy Adamson were both supporters of women's rights and were determined to raise their six children according to these principals. When Mary, the eldest daughter, had reached the age of eighteen, she was sent to Newnham College. At university she became friendly with Margery Corbett and together they joined the Cambridge branch of the National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). Mary spent many weekends at Margery's home in Danehill, Sussex, and was brought into contact with Marie Corbett, Cicely Corbett, and other committed feminists in Sussex.

Mary obtained a first class honours degree, and this enabled her to obtain a teaching post in the history department of the University College of South Wales. In 1905 she resigned her post after her marriage to a university colleague, Charles Hamilton.

Mary remained an active member of the NUWSS and after her conversion to socialism, she joined the Independent Labour Party. After the First World War, Mary began writing for the feminist journal, Time and Time. Later she worked as a journalist for The Economist magazine.

In 1923 Mary Hamilton made her first attempt to enter Parliament. After the passing of the Equal Franchise Act in 1928, which gave all women over the age of twenty-one the vote, it became easier for women to be selected as candidates in winnable constituencies.

In 1929 Mary was elected as Labour MP for Blackburn. Mary Hamilton was immediately appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Clement Attlee, the Postmaster General in the Ramsey MacDonald government. Mary also served on the Royal Commission on the Civil Service where she argued strongly in favour of equal pay for men and women. Mary also became involved in the campaign to remove the marriage bar on women teachers.

After her defeat in the 1931 General Election, Mary Hamilton remained in public life. Mary was a governor of the BBC (1932-1936) and a member of the London County Council (1937-1940). During the Second World War Mary Hamilton was head of the American Division of the Ministry of Information. Mary Hamilton also wrote biographies of important labour figures such as Margaret Bondfield and Arthur Henderson. Mary Hamilton died in 1966.

Biographical Links

Margery Corbett Ashby
Cicely Corbett Fisher
Marie Corbett
Margaret Bondfield

Source Database

1.10
3.7
6.7

Further Reading

Mary Hamilton, Remembering My Good Friends, Jonathan Cape (1944)
Mary Hamilton, Uphill all the Way, Jonathan Cape (1953)
Marie Roberts (ed.), The Reformers: Socialist Feminism, Routledge (1995)

back to top