Mavis Tate

Mavis Constance Tate (17 August 1893 – 5 June 1947), baptised Maybird Hogg, was a British Conservative politician and campaigner for British women's rights.

Life

Her first marriage, to Captain G. H. Gott, lasted from 1915 until their divorce in 1925. Her second marriage, to Henry Tate, lasted from 1925 to their divorce in 1944. She suffered a nervous breakdown in 1940.

Tate died in London in 1947. She committed suicide by gassing herself.

Political career

As a member of the Conservative Party, she was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Willesden West in 1931. In 1935, however, she moved to the constituency of Frome.

It has been alleged that she was an early member of Archibald Ramsay's Right Club from its founding in May 1939, but this seems unlikely as she was one of those protesting publicly against German persecution of the Jews in November 1938.

Women's rights campaign

Tate was an advocate of arming women to resist a German invasion in 1940.

She chaired the Women's Power Committee of 1941 and the Equal Pay Campaign Committee of 1942 and was vocal on the subject of equal pay for women as part of the war effort.

Journalism

Shortly after the end of World War II, Tate travelled with nine others to visit the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany to report on the result of the atrocities there. She narrated the newsreel of this visit for British Pathé News.