Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor

Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor was an English politician born in Danville, Virginia

Early Life

Astor was born in 1879 in Danville to Chiswell Dabney Langhorne and Nancy Witcher Keene. Langhorne was a struggling railroad businessman at the time, as the end of the Civil War had bankrupted his formerly successful operation. In the early 1890s, when Astor was a teenager, the family was wealthy once more and moved to Mirador in Albemarle County. It was at this time that Astor met and prayed under Rev. Frederick W. Neve, an English pastor who led the Emmanuel Episcopal Church close to the family estate. Between 1892 and 1897, the two went on regular horseback rides together through Albemarle County, and maintained a lifelong friendship.

In 1897, Astor married her first husband, Robert Gould Shaw II, and moved to Massachusetts with him. The two had one son, Robert Gould Shaw III, though the marriage was considered unhappy; they divorced in 1903 and Astor returned home to Virginia.

Life in England

In 1905, Astor moved with her son and younger sister to England, where she met Waldorf Astor, the son of millionaire Viscount William Waldorf Astor. The two wed months later, in May of 1906. While he was the Member of Parliament for Plymouth, Astor became known as a hostess, welcoming politicians and celebrities to their estate at Cliveden. The two had five children, William Waldorf Astor II, Francis David Langhorne Astor, Michael Langhorne Astor, John Jacob Astor VII, and Nancy Phyllis Louise Astor.

When her husband's father died in 1919, he became Viscount Astor and was forced to leave the House of Commons to serve in the House of Lords. The now-Viscountess Astor ran for his former seat as a Unionist. She won the election with 51% of the vote, becoming the first woman to take her seat in Parliament, something that had been legalized only one year prior.

While Astor regularly advocated for women's rights, she had next to no ties to the suffragette movement, and went so far as to speak against a bill that would have given women equal rights to divorce. She was most known for pushing to raise the drinking age to 18 (it had been set at 14 in 1901) and lowering the women's voting age to 21. Astor was the only woman in the House of Commons for two years, and in 1929 attempted to establish a women's-only party with her fellow female MPs, which failed. The failure of her proposal is considered the end of any true political power she had, as more ardently-feminist MPs were elected.

During the 1930s, the Viscountess and Viscount were villainized in the British press for their wealth and support of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policies towards Hitler. Despite this, Astor voted to remove Chamberlain from office in 1940, which led to Winston Churchill's wartime tenure.

The Second World War saw the Astors helping to boost morale in Plymouth, where Viscount Astor served as mayor. Their home was transformed into a hospital for Canadian soldiers, and Viscountess Astor regularly performed for them during Blitz attacks, which were frequent in the seaside town.

After the war, Astor was informed that her unpopularity during the 1930s had not ended, despite the charity work she may have carried out during the conflict. She did not stand in the 1945 elections and retired from politics. Her retirement meant that she was spending much more time at home, which led to her and her husband separating. He died in 1952.

In 1959, in recognition of her dedication to the town during her career in Parliament and throughout World War II, Astor was made an Honorary Freeman of Plymouth, and helped to launch the HMS Plymouth. She died on May 2, 1964.