A FINE WOMAN

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 91, 14 October 1931, Page 13

A FINE WOMAN

LATE DR. E. BENTHAM

Dr. Ethel Bentham, J.P., M.P., who died in London recently, was a very wonderful woman in many ways. At the ago of 70 she was member for East Islington, one of.the first Justices of the Peace, and the first medical woman to be elected as a member of Parliament. She had a wonderful spirit, and was not to be discouraged. She contested the seat at East Islington four times in ten years, being finally elected in 1920. By sheer hard work she raised the number of votes polled for her in that constituency from 3000 to 15,200. Dr. Bentham was born in London, but spent all her early days in Dublin, and there the horrors of the slums made her become a social reformer. Sh^ resolved to become a doctor, and by dint of hard study accomplished hor object, studying mostly at women's hospitals. She took her M..D. in .Brussels. She held important positions on borough councils, etc., and Was senior medical officer at North Kensington for many years, later becoming consultant. M.O. Dr. Bentham served on the Labour Executive (National) from 1919, and during her'short Parliamentary career was a member of the Select Committee on Capital Punishment, and the Nationality of Married Women Bill, which secured a second reading. It is stated that Dr. Bentham had immense capacity for hard, work, and an iron determination in the aatter of reforms. These qualities, united with aeep sympathy and kindness, endeared her to large numbers of patients and friends.