Ethel Bentham

Dr. Ethel Bentham (5 January 1861 – 19 January 1931) was a progressive doctor, a politician and a suffragist in the United Kingdom. She was born in London, educated at Alexandra School and College in Dublin, the London School of Medicine for Women and the Rotunda Hospital. She never married.

In March 1910, Bentham became a member of the executive of the Women's Labour League. She stood unsuccessfully as the Labour candidate for Kensington Borough Council in 1909, and London County Council in 1910, before being elected a member of Kensington Borough Council in 1912, representing the ward of Golborne, a position she held until 1925. After World War I she was appointed a magistrate, one of the first women in the role, working in the children's courts and serving on the Metropolitan Asylums Board.

She stood unsuccessfully as the Labour Party candidate for Islington East in the General Elections of 1922 and 1923. Bentham was finally successful in the 1929 general election, the fifteenth woman MP, the first ever woman Quaker and doctor, and at 68 years of age the oldest woman to be elected to Parliament.

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