The Number Nineteen

[rachel]

https://bahaipedia.org/Nineteen

Nineteen

The number 19 appears in several roles in the Bábí and Bahá’í faiths. Among these are: the gathering of 19 Letters of the Living, the use of 19 per cent in monetary matters, the calendar, and therefore the Nineteen Day Feast.


The number 19 in Bábí and Bahá’í history
The Báb gathered round him nineteen Letters of the Living. This was clearly all planned and pre-ordained, because the Báb told Mullá Ḥusayn on the first night of the new Dispensation that eighteen people would each independently recognise him. One of these eighteen was, of course, Ṭáhirih, who could not be physically present. With the Báb Himself, the gathering grew to become nineteen persons in all, and then the flow stopped. Clearly, the exact number of persons required to complete the circle of 19 were present in Shiraz at that time, and no more.

Nineteen people have been named as Apostles of Bahá’u’lláh. These were eminent early followers of Bahá’u’lláh, and were so designated by the Guardian. [1] These individuals played a vital role in the development of the Faith, consolidating its adherents and taking its teachings around the world.

From 1844 and the Declaration of the Báb, until 1863, when Bahá’u’lláh declared Himself as the Manifestation of God, was nineteen years. The Báb had said that the Promised One would appear in the Year nine (this would agree with Bahá'u'lláh's revelation in the Siyáh-Chál), but that His Cause would be manifested in the Year nineteen.


The number 19 in the Badi calendar
Nineteen is central to the Badi calendar. There are 19 days in each month, and these 19 days each have a name, or ordinal identifier. There are 19 months in a year, and these months each have a name. 19 years make up a Vahid, or Unity. 19 Vahids comprise a Kull-i-Shay (Cycle of All Things). As Bahá’u’lláh promised that the next Manifestation would come in not less than a thousand years' time, it can be postulated that there will be only three such Kull-i-Shays within the Bábí/Bahá’í dispensation. (The seven-day week will, however, be retained.)


The number 19 in financial matters
The number 19 is used a number of times in Bahá’í law. In the calculation of Ḥuqúqu’lláh, ("The Right of God"), 19 per cent is payable upon the amount of increase. If a person gains possessions or wealth in excess of what is necessary, equal in value to at least that of nineteen mithqáls of gold (19 mithqáls are equal in weight to 80.75 grams, or 2.2246 ounces), it is a spiritual obligation to pay nineteen percent of the total amount, once only, as Ḥuqúqu’lláh.

In the calculation of the dowry to be paid to the woman, 19 mithqáls is the amount set by Bahá'u'lláh, and this is to be in gold for city-dwellers and silver for village-dwellers. Should someone wish to make it more, then 95 mithqáls is the limit. 95 is, of course, a multiple of 19. [2]


The number 19 as proof of the Person of the Báb
An Egyptian Muslim in the United States of America, himself an ardent Qur'anist, put the text of the Qur'an through a computer program, to see if there was, after all, a pattern to the Qur'an. His results, published in a book, suggest that the number 19, and its multiples, appear throughout the Qur'an far more times than would be statistically expected. For example, the total occurrence of the word "God" (Allah) in the Quran is 2698, which is 19 x 142. The reader can ascertain the accuracy of this total by randomly checking the numbers of the word "God" at the bottom of any pages in the book. Additionally, if one adds the verse numbers wherever the word "God" occurs, the total comes to 118123, also a multiple of 19 (118123 = 19 x 6217). In these counts, the earliest formats of the Qur'an were used, because of slight changes in spelling, etc., over the centuries.

There are 114 chapters (surihs) to the Qur'an. 114 is 19 x 6. The dedication before each chapter, "In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful" has 19 letters. It is at the start of each chapter, except chapter nine. In one chapter, chapter 27, this phrase appears twice, balancing the number back up to 114 (a multiple of 19). The group of chapters from 9 to 27 numbers 19. Each of the four substantive words (name, God (see above), Compassionate, Merciful) of the phrase appears in the Qur'an, obviously, a certain number of times, but in each case that number is a multiple of nineteen. The chapter usually referred to as "Q" ("Qaf") begins with the "disconnected letter" Q. The inclusion of this otherwise inexplicable introductory letter brings the number of "q"s in the chapter up to a multiple of nineteen. There are far more examples than this, but the Qur'an itself only offers one explanation for its use of the number nineteen, that it is a test for the true believers. The implication is that this is the covenant between Muḥammad and the believers, that they should recognise the Báb as the next Messenger of God.[3]


The crucial importance of the number 19, according to the Qur'án
The one direct reference to the figure nineteen appears in chapter 74. Verse 30, one of the shortest in the Qur'án, states: "Over it are nineteen." (This is the entirety of the verse, and does not with any certainty relate to the preceding verse.) Verse 31 (by contrast a particularly long verse) carries the explanation referred to above:

• "And we have set none but angels as guardians of the fire; and we have fixed their number only as a trial for unbelievers, - in order that the people of the Book may arrive at certainty, and the believers may increase in Faith - and that no doubts may be left for the people of the Book and the believers, and that those in whose hearts is a disease and the unbelievers may say, "What symbol doth Alláh intend by this?" Thus doth Alláh leave to stray whom He pleaseth, and guide whom He pleaseth: and none can know the forces of the Lord..."[4]

Notes

1. The Bahá'i World, Volume III (pp80-81)
2. Bahá'u'lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas, paragraph 66.
3. Disconnected Letters of the Qur'an and the Significance of the Number Nineteen, by Robert T. Cameron, 1997
4. Qur'an, chapter 74, verse 31 (Abdu'lláh Yusuf Alí translation)

[rachel]

I'm still of the opinion Sufism is a base point for all the number magic we see. Just about everyone seems to be using the enneagram's 1-9 for behavioural change. Wiki tells us:

Historically, Kabbalah emerged from earlier forms of Jewish mysticism, in 12th- to 13th-century Spain and Southern France, and was reinterpreted during the Jewish mystical renaissance in 16th-century Ottoman Palestine. The Zohar, the foundational text of Kabbalah, was composed in the late 13th century. Isaac Luria (16th century) is considered the father of contemporary Kabbalah; Lurianic Kabbalah was popularised in the form of Hasidic Judaism from the 18th century onwards.

Leonardo DaVinci's Vetruvian Man, dated to c. 1490, has nine points.

With the layout of the man, inside the circle, there are nine points. According to The Vitruvian Man, “This image provides the perfect example of Leonardo’s keen interest in proportion. In addition, this picture represents a cornerstone of Leonardo’s attempts to relate man to nature. Encyclopaedia Britannica online states, ‘Leonardo envisaged the great picture chart of the human body he had produced through his anatomical drawings and Vitruvian Man as a cosmografia del minor mondo (cosmography of the microcosm). He believed the workings of the human body to be an analogy for the workings of the universe.’” This is an image of the perfected man, or the superman, placed within a square to represent earth, placed within a circle to represent perfection. Given the nine points, nine being the highest single-digit number representing perfection throughout all occult and mystic beliefs.

But the enneagram can be traced back as far as Zoroaster, who lived sometime before around 400 BC, somewhere in Eurasia.

The teachings of Zoroaster are present to this day and are known as the study of the enneagram , several international companies (such as Disney) apply these principles which mainly consist of achieving spiritual balance without God. The enneagram is also a preparation for employees to adapt to the New World Order, which will transform humanity into an army of collective imbeciles, and this is in line with Lenista communism.

And here we see the Islamic Sufis teaching 1 to 9 on the Enneagram in not so different a way to the Jesuits.

Realities of Numbers 1 to 9
https://www.nurmuhammad.com/ahkfa-secre ... jr-mahjur/

From the Teachings of Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani As Taught by Shaykh Nurjan Mirahmad

• Audhu billahi minash Shaytanir rajeem
  Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem
  
  I seek refuge in Allah from Satan, the rejected one
  In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful

Reality of Numbers

Everything is precisely numbered

Anybody who did a little bit of programming understands that. Means for you to have a software means a tremendous amount of programming and that programming is locked and precise. As you type, activates something in the program, and you can type all you want and it doesn’t change anything in the program. Means the program is fixed. So when we are amazed, how are these numbers correlating because they came first, before the manifestation of this material world.

• “… and He has encompassed whatever is with them and has enumerated all things in number. ” (The Jinn 72:28)

Means these were all precisely numbered realities. The Divine is going to open from the secrets of 9, and 9 is the perfection of numbers.


Understanding Realities of Numbers from 1 to 9

Shaykh - Sultan Awliya Circle - Enneagram

Number 1 – Oneness of Allah – Nucleus

We said from 1 through 9 are the base numbers in the oceans of reality of numbers. That you have from 1, which represents the Oneness of the Divine. The saints that are sitting at that position 1, their duty is to teach us Oneness. There are not 2 gods, there are not 3 gods, there are not 4 gods, there is just but One Creator, because we see only 1 nucleus in the atom. If you had 2 nucleuses the electrons wouldn’t know which one to go around and there would be chaos.

The position 1 teaches us, “I am the Beginning, I am the One.”


Reality of Number 2 – Prophetic Reality – Radius

Position 2 begins to teach us about the Ocean of Power. That the Prophetic reality begins as a mirror from the One. When the Divine is going to create creation, from that Divine Light is the creation of the Prophetic light. So then 1 is the One Source of Power, the centre of our circle. The prophets, they are not by chance. They are perfected souls. The Divine knows that when He is going to create those in the Ocean of Light, they were created before anything and they are a reflection of the One. So then 2 represents the secret of the reflection of 1.

The shaykh or the saint at the 2 begins to teach us that the prophets are a radius for this circle. They connect everyone to the same centre. They are all brothers. No radius goes to a different centre. If the centre’s 1, all the prophets are connected like the spokes of a wheel. You can’t have a spoke somewhere else. There’s one wheel of creation.

When we look at the hover spacecraft we see the whole universe like a egg spinning. It’s a circle, one centre. That One Source of Power and then the radius comes as a messenger to take all of creation to the centre.

That from the Essence of Divine is One – nobody is in that One. Nothing exists except Allah in that One. When Allah is going to create the creation is the soul of prophets, is the ocean of 2.

1. There is no god but Allah,
2. Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.

So the shaykh is teaching us: that ocean is the Ocean of Power. Everyone has to connect to the 2 to get to the 1. You can’t jump over the prophets. I can’t just buy a book and be clever. Which prophet are you coming through? Which teachings did they teach? Which prophet said that?

So that’s why we said, “Go back and look. Did any prophet tell us to wear Versace suits and gold watches, max out your credit card on certain holidays? Or blow people up as a sign of religion?” Which two said these crazy things? Which ocean of 2 said these things? All said the same: “Leave that material world, leave these fancy things. Leave your credit cards and buying. Leave harming people and fix and correct yourself.”


Reality of Number 3 – Creation of Soul – Circumference

That from the Essence of Divine is One – Nothing exists except Allah in that One. When Allah going to create the creation is the soul of prophets, is the ocean of 2. From that light of the prophets is the birth of 3. 3 is the secret of our souls and the 3-dimensional creation.

The ocean of 3 opens the circle of creation – the nucleus, the radius and now the circumference begins to manifest. We are from that ocean of 3. This 3 represents the secret of the soul. The shaykh at position 3 begins to teach us: we are all from that ocean and we must all connect back to the prophets and the prophets teach us of the reality of 1.

Then now the 3 is the base. The 3 is the base and now every number til 9 is going to be added on 3.


Reality of Number 4 (3+1) – Creation of Form from 4 Elements

• 3 + 1 = 4
  Soul + Divine Power = Creation of Form

You have 3 as base; now 3 plus 1. Means from that Divine Power of 1 begins to hit that 3 and begin to teach us the reality of 4, that 4 is the creation of our form. From 4 basic elements, everything in the created world is from these basic elements: water, fire, earth and wind.

Water comes first. Everything created from water, where the Divine says, “My Throne was upon the water.”

• “And it is He who created the heavens and the earth in six days – and His Throne had been upon water – that He might test you as to which of you is best in deed…”(Holy Quran)

The greatness and the mightiness of God’s Power is on water. Water is a Divine fire of angels, but water because it is angelic does not burn us, it is peaceful. It is tranquil. Fire are the genies. Our fiery beings what we call genies. Fire by its nature is unstable and the earth is solid and stable. Earth, where Allah describing, “I created you from earth.”

• “And certainly did We create man from an extract of clay.” (The Believers 23:12)

Then the shaykh at position 4 begins to teach us the secret of creation. That all the angelic reality is created from water. All the genies and spiritual beings are created from fire. Water’s stable; fire is very dangerous. Anybody who plays with fire gets burned. So don’t play with spiritual beings. So many people go to fortune tellers and different people who play with fire. Anybody, they taught us when we were kids: if you play with fire, you will get burned. Fire by its nature is not something you can control, like gasoline, at one time it explodes. Play with water, it’s much safer for you. Means choose an angelic path towards reality.

Then Divine begins to teach us, the shaykh at position 4 begins to teach us: we are created from soil. Then the reality of soil begins to open for us that soil can take water and everything grows. Soil can also put out fire. Because of our noble creation, we can contain water, so angels can come into us and bless us and many realities grow. At the same time, we have a fire within us. If we use the reality of that soil, we can put down that fire. That’s why when you don’t have water to wash, you take sand and clean soil and takes away negative energy.

Then Divine is teaching us, “You are a noble creation.

• “We have certainly honoured the children of Adam…” (The Night Journey 17:70)

You are the scale. I can put that angelic light and it will prosper and grow within you. Like water in a bottle, the greenness is the force of life that grows. And I have put a fiery nature within you. Repent and control your fire and you’re going to grow towards your reality. Because of that I’m going to blow from My Spirit into you.” So then the reality of wind, is the Divine Breath is blessing us and dressing us that, “You are a noble creation.”


Reality of Number 5 (3+2) – 5 Senses – Guidance

• 3 + 2 = 5
  Soul in Ocean of Power + Prophetic Ocean = Guidance

3 plus 2, means that 3 from the realities of the ocean of the prophets, the ocean of 2 opens the reality of 5. So 3 plus 2 means that the soul dressed again from the secret of the prophets opens the reality of 5, and 5 is guidance. You use your 5 senses in your world. You use your hearing, you use your seeing, you use your touch, you use your smelling, and then you use your taste. We use this in our physical world for everything we do.

These 5 senses have a matching 5 senses for the soul – use your spiritual hearing, use your spiritual seeing, use your spiritual touch. Become subtle and feel things that people can’t feel. Use your spiritual smell- aromatherapy at its reality is angelic reality, ‘cause smell is the power of angels. Once you use your spiritual smell, things that are offensive to you, you know them, if it smells bad, it is bad. If it’s good-smelling and pleasant-smelling it’s angelic force. So good smells makes us feel good. Good smells brings health to us. So then the subtleness of air begins to open its reality.

Then the highest level of reality is the reality of taste. At that level we are tasting the reality. We’re tasting from our soul, hearing from our soul, touching from our soul, smelling from our soul, and begin to taste in that Heavenly Presence.

The shaykh at the position 5 is teaching us that reality, that your soul, with the power of 2 from the prophets, they’re dressing you from Bahr ul-Qudra. You begin to understand your senses, how you need these senses in the world to reach those senses of One.


Reality of Number 6 (3+3) – The Loving One

• 3 + 3 = 6
  Imitated Being + Real Being = Love
  Soul at the Body + Soul at Divine’s Presence

The 3 plus 3 means the reality of our soul with the reality of the soul begins to dress for us the secret of Divine Love. That your soul meets what you have in your body. From that understanding of the 3 you’re imitated being needs to connect back with your real being. The reality of your soul is always in Divine Presence.

Means the shaykh at position 6 is teaching us that you’ve been given a small portion of that light; reach back to your reality. What you are doing with your soul is not its reality. What you are doing in this world is all but an illusion – connect these back.

Then it begins to open the reality of 6, and 6 has to do with the secret of love, The Loving One (One of Allah’s Names), that you are created in that Divine Image. You are created from that Ocean of Love. That’s why we said in other lectures from Mawlana Shaykh’s teaching: if you see God in any imperfection that is the result of our imperfection. If we’re not perfect we see God as angry, we see God as violent, we see God as hateful, we see God as punishing.

• Abu Hurayrah (ra) mentioned that the Prophet Muhammad said: Allah the Almighty said: I am as My servant thinks I am (Hadith #15, al Bukhari)

The prophets teach us: perfect yourself, reach the reality of love and Divine Love and then you begin to see what God is. Means, yeah you can never see God but you can begin to witness the signs of the Divine through the attribute of Divine Love, and that everything is created with that Love. Who are you to curse it? Who are you to come against it? Who are you to bother anyone in that Ocean of Love? Our duty is to perfect our self and make an oasis of love, feed and drink whom are coming for that love.


Reality of Number 7 – Opening of 7 Holy Openings

• 3+ 4 = 7
  Perfection of Soul + Perfection of Body = Opens 7

Means then 3 and 4 begins to open up the reality of the 4 and the 7. Means the perfection of the soul at 3, the perfection of 4 is the physicality, that you perfected your soul. The shaykh at position 4 taught us about the physicality. What is the reality of your physicality? What are its limitations and what are its potentials? That 3 and 4 opens the secret of the 7.

Means the 7 holy openings, the 7 rings of an atom, the 7 times you circumambulate the Ka’bah, the 7 paradises - all of these connected with that 7 that perfect your soul, perfect your body and reach and open up all of your chakras towards the reality of perfection.


Reality of Number 8 (3+4) – Ocean of Eternal Living

• 3+ 5 = 8
  Soul + Guidance = Ocean of Eternal Living

Then 3 plus 5 - we said that 5 was guidance. If the soul reaches the perfection of guidance, it reached the reality of Eternal Living. The secret of life. 8 and its eternity. If you have perfected your physicality, you perfected your soul, you’re now in the Ocean of The Ever Living (One of Allah’s Names). Means that you’ve taken yourself to the reality of the ever-living and you become from the saints of the ever-living who have died of their desires and reached the reality of life, the reality of the ever-living.


Reality of Number 9 (3+6) : Annihilation – Complete Submission

• 36 = Surah Yasin – Heart of Quran
  3 + 6 = 9
  Reality of Soul + Reality of Love = Annihilation

3 plus 6 means the reality of the soul plus the reality of love, and 36 is Suratul Yaseen which is the heart of the Qur’an. 3 plus 6 is 9 and represents the perfection of the soul and the perfection of love is the sultan, is the king of numbers which is the reality of 9. 9 is the perfected number. There’s no number higher than 9. 9 represents complete submission.

10 is 1 and 0. 11 is 1 and 1. 23 is 2 and 3. Everything is going to use these building blocks. So the highest number is 9 and 9 represents invincible and perfection. 9 times 2 is 18; 1 plus 8 goes back to 9. 9 multiplied by any number adds itself back to 9. So then 9 is the sultan, 9 is the king, 9 is perfection and complete submission. Past 9 you become a dot because they perfected your submission. Means that you become a dot and a point.

The Gnostic Circle is a teaching that was brought about in 1975 using the enneagram as it's basis.

The Gnostic Circle presents the unity-vision of the Vedic Rishis in which the division of the Earth’s 360° year into 12 months and our 0/9 number system/enneagram are seen to function simultaneously rather than as separate systems of measure and knowledge. With this simple vision of the oneness of the zodiac and enneagram, the Gnostic Circle invites viewers to consider how they can begin to outgrow the fragmented consciousness that is the foundation of our current civilisation. The image of the Gnostic Circle presents the supramental or solar consciousness by which all divisions of the circle and all divisions proper to the process of the creation of life, are eternally One.

[rachel]

Well, I said in this post I should make a note of the first woman MP in the UK in 1919...the 18th October 1919 to be exact. So 19-19-19...else maybe XXX.

Jackanory...tell a story...a 13% higher turn out than the general election and a postponement of the count to get those postal votes in...fancy that.

https://history.blog.gov.uk/2019/11/28/ ... arliament/

The first woman of British parliament
Posted by: Tara Finn, Posted on: 28 November 2019

The first woman elected to Westminster was Constance Markiewicz, but the first one to take up her seat in Parliament in 1919 was American-born Nancy Astor.

Background
Nancy Witcher-Longhorne was born in Virginia, USA in 1879. Her family’s fortunes initially fluctuated, but by 1892 they possessed considerable wealth. By 1903, she was a divorcee with a small child. Her father suggested that she should move to England. In 1906 she married an American-born Briton, Waldorf Astor, one of many eligible men who sought her hand. She was a beauty; he was heir to one of the richest men in the country and was besotted with her. It was a good social match.

Portrait of Mrs. Waldorf Astor, nee Nancy Langhorne, painted by John Singer Sargent in 1908. Source: http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/766112

They moved in high social circles. Nancy used these connections to steer Waldorf away from his family’s interests in newspapers, which he hated, and into politics. In 1908 he was selected as the Unionist candidate for Plymouth.[1] Nancy was an ardent campaigner for him. He came third in the election in January 1910, but was elected as the MP for Plymouth in December that year.

In 1914, she converted to Christian Science. Combined with the teetotalism adopted in response to her father’s drinking, this would become a strong influence on her life. Waldorf and Nancy took a pastoral interest in his constituency. This increased with the advent of war in 1914 and Nancy committed herself to welfare work.

The vacant seat
On his father’s death on 18 October 1919, Waldorf was immediately elevated to the House of Lords as the 2nd Viscount Astor. Despite his wish to stay in the Commons he was obliged to renounce his seat. He considered relinquishing his seat in the Lords. To do so, though, required an Act of Parliament, which his party was unwilling to support for political reasons.

The Unionist Party had to appoint another candidate. They originally approached Waldorf’s brother, who declined because of his war wounds. Despite the strength of the Waldorf name, they originally hesitated to adopt Nancy. Only one woman was elected in the general election in 1918, the first in which women could stand, Constance Markievicz. As an Irish Nationalist, she did not take her seat. So putting forward a woman candidate was still considered a political risk. Other concerns about Nancy’s suitability were that she was glamorous, sharp-tongued, and previously divorced.

It was Waldorf’s idea that she should stand, with the hope that he would be able to return to his constituency role. This left Nancy in a quandary. If she successfully ran, and accepted the position in a caretaker capacity, it would be damaging to women’s fight for equality. To take on the position fully would not help Waldorf.

Nancy Astor, 1921. Source: Woman Citizen Corporation

Standing for parliament
She faced 2 opponents, from the Labour Party and the Liberals. Neither of them had fought in the war, something she focused on when campaigning. A disadvantage for the Labour candidate was that the Labour Party opposed the government’s intervention against the Bolsheviks in Russia. In a naval city like Plymouth, this was not a vote winner.

She campaigned hard, just as she had applied herself to relief work during the war. She faced hecklers. Her glamour did not count against her, as it increased the curiosity of her audience about her. One organisation supporting her was the Association for Social and Moral Hygiene. Her advisers told her not to focus on temperance as an issue in her campaign. However, as both of her opponents were themselves teetotal, it did not count against her as much as it might have.

The election took place on 15 November, but the votes were not counted until 28 November. This was to allow time for postal votes from those serving overseas to be included. The voter turnout was high – 73%. It had been 60% in the general election the previous year. Nancy won with a majority of over 5,000.

Taking her seat
Nancy described her first 5 years in the Commons as ‘hell’. Some members of the House, including previous friends, were unwelcoming. Others, such as Lloyd George, endorsed her.

It was not until 1922 that any other women took their seats in Parliament. Although Nancy was not associated with women’s suffrage prior to her election, she initially supported other women MPs, irrespective of party.

Her priority was welfare issues relating to under-privileged women and children. Her strongest passion, connected to this, lay in supporting teetotalism. She led the bill to raise the legal drinking age from 14 to 18.

Winston Churchill, accompanied by Viscountess Astor, is cheered by workers during a visit to bomb-damaged Plymouth, 2 May 1941. Copyright: © IWM.

1939 onwards
As in the First World War, Nancy worked hard to support the welfare of troops during the war, running a hospital for Canadian soldiers. Maybe the strain told, as her wartime speeches became somewhat long and erratic. She was also known for heckling and interrupting other MPs. Such behaviour lost her friends and allies.

Nancy was a woman of strong beliefs; the depth of these feelings means that her reputation today is somewhat tarnished. She was fiercely anti-Catholic, and anti-Semitic. Some suggest that her views were no more prejudiced than those of men of the period, but that being a high-profile woman, they were remembered. Most notoriously, in the summer of 1944 she was alleged to have labelled the soldiers fighting in Italy the “D-Day Dodgers”. Although there is no proof she ever did use the term, and she strongly denied it, the phrase and her association with it, stuck. The epithet was adopted with sardonic pride.

By 1945 the Conservative Party considered her erratic talk and decline in popularity to be a liability. Waldorf persuaded her not to stand in the general election. She retired from politics, but the subsequent strain on her marriage meant that the couple separated for a number of years afterwards.

Nancy Astor’s biggest success was not reflected in any particular legislation she championed. Nor was she ever appointed to any significant political post or ministerial position. Her legacy lay in successfully breaching the male domain of Westminster and remaining there for 26 years. By doing this she led the way for other women to follow her and for Parliament, finally, to represent all citizens.

[1] Officially called the Unionist and Conservative Party, later more commonly just referred to as the Conservatives.