Episode description

Judge and former President of the Supreme Court, Lady Hale, chooses to nominate the suffragette, businesswoman, and founder of Time and Tide magazine, Margaret Haig Thomas, also known as Lady Rhondda.

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, Honorary Professor of History.

Produced by Ellie Richold for BBC Audio in Bristol