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Florence Priscilla, Lady Norman, CBE, JP (née McLaren; 1883 – 1 March 1964, Antibes) was a British activist and suffragist.
Lady Norman | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Florence Priscilla McLaren 1883 |
| Died | 1 March 1964 |
| Spouse | Sir Henry Norman, 1st Baronet (m. 1907) |
| Parents |
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Background
editLady Norman was an active supporter of women's suffrage but not a militant.[1] She held the post of Hon. Treasurer of the Liberal Women's Suffrage Union. Like her grandparents who started Bodnant Garden, Priscilla was a keen horticulturist. When she and her husband acquired Ramster Hall, Surrey she was instrumental in setting out rhododendrons and azaleas in the gardens. The gardens were opened to public view under the National Gardens Scheme from 1927 and continue to be opened under that scheme.[2]
Politics
editLike her mother, she was active in the cause of women's suffrage through the Liberal Women's Suffrage Union and the Women's Liberal Federation.
During the First World War, she ran a voluntary hospital in Wimereux, France with her husband. She was awarded the Mons Star for her services and created a CBE for her war services.
After the creation of the Imperial War Museum in 1917 she became chair of one of its subcommittees (the Women's Work Subcommittee) and was instrumental in ensuring that the contributions of women during the war were recorded and included in the museum's collections.[3] Having an interest in mental health issues, she became the first woman to be appointed to the board of the Royal Earlswood Hospital in 1926. During the Second World War she was a driver for the Women's Voluntary Service in London.
The archives of Lady Norman are held at the Women's Library in London.
Family
editPriscilla was the fourth child and second daughter of Charles McLaren, 1st Baron Aberconway and Laura Elizabeth Pochin. Her brothers were the Liberal politicians Henry D McLaren and Francis McLaren. In 1907 she married, as his second wife, Sir Henry Norman, 1st Baronet, a noted journalist and then Liberal MP for Wolverhampton South, who lost this seat in the first election of 1910 but then gained Blackburn in the second election of that year. Amongst the causes Sir Henry helped promote as a politician was women's suffrage.
References
edit- ^ "Papers of Lady Florence Priscilla Norman, 1871-1922". Women's Library Archives. GB 106 7NOR. Retrieved 31 August 2018 – via Archives Hub.
- ^ "Lady Florence Priscilla Norman (1883-1964)". Exploring Surrey's Past. 1 August 2019. Retrieved 30 June 2020.
- ^ Carmichael, Jane (1989). "Olive Edis:Imperial War Museum Photographer in Fance And Belgium, March 1919". Imperial War Museum Review. 4: 4–11.
Sources
edit- thePeerage.com
- French, Patrick (6 January 2011) [2004]. "Norman, Sir Henry, first baronet (1858–1939)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/61020. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
External links
edit- National Portrait Gallery
- Lives of the First World War [1]
- Imperial War Museums records [2]