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Lady Hale on Lady Rhondda

Lady Hale chooses the suffragette, businesswoman and founder of Time and Tide, Lady Rhondda. With Matthew Parris. From 2022.

Suffragette, businesswoman, and founder of Time and Tide magazine, Margaret Haig Thomas, is also known as Lady Rhondda.

She’s nominated by judge and former President of the Supreme Court, Lady Hale.

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, author of Turning the Tide: The Life of Lady Rhondda.

Presented by Matthew Parris.

Produced for Âé¶¹Éç Audio in Bristol by r: Ellie Richold.

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28 minutes

Last on

Fri 8 May 2026 00:00

Broadcasts

  • Tue 11 Jan 2022 16:30
  • Fri 14 Jan 2022 23:00
  • Thu 7 May 2026 10:00
  • Thu 7 May 2026 16:00
  • Fri 8 May 2026 00:00

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