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Susan Lawrence, the daughter of Nathaniel Lawrence, a wealthy solicitor, and Laura Bacon, was born in London in 1871. After being educated at Newnham College, Cambridge, she worked as a school manager. In 1900 she was elected to the London School Board and four years later, was co-opted to the education committee of the London County Council.
Lawrence was originally a supporter of the Conservative Party but under the influence of Beatrice Webb and Sidney Webb, she joined the Fabian Society (1911) and the Labour Party (1912).
After meeting Mary Macarthur, Lawrence joined the Women's Trade Union League and spent the next ten years working for the cause. Despite her monocle and aristocratic manner, Lawrence gradually won over working women in London. As well as helping to organize women workers, Lawrence co-wrote two books on the subject, Women in the Engineering Trades (1917) and Labour Women and International Legislation (1919).
As a member of the Poplar Borough Council, Lawrence joined George Lansbury and his campaign against the working of the Poor Law. After refusing to collect the Poor Law Rate, Lawrence was imprisoned for five weeks in Holloway Prison.
In the 1923 General Election, Lawrence became Labour MP for East Ham North. Soon afterwards she was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the President of the Board of Education. Defeated the the 1924 General Election, Lawrence returned to the House of Commons in 1926.
When Ramsay MacDonald formed a Labour Government after the 1929 General Election, Lawrence became Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health. In this post she helped guide the Widows, Orphans and Old Age Pensions Bill through Parliament. Unwilling to support MacDonald's National Government, Lawrence, like most Labour MPs, lost her seat in the 1931 General Election.
Although she failed to become MP again, she continued to work for the Labour Party. In her later years Lawrence was heavily involved in voluntary work for the blind. Susan Lawrence died on 25th October 1947.
Woman MPs in October 1924. Left to right, Dorothy Jewson, Susan Lawrence, Nancy Astor, Margaret
Winteringham, Katharine Stewart-Murray, Mabel Philipson, Vera Terrington and Margaret Bondfield.
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