ABSTRACT
Margaret McMillan was born in the mid-Victorian era, and her agitation for legislative change was during the early 1900s, when political pressure for social change was building and new political affiliations were being formed in Britain. When her mother died, Margaret was seventeen years old and had to be prepared for employment. She left home to be 'a governess'. During much her adult life, Margaret and her older sister Rachel lived and worked closely together and Rachel seems to have been the catalyst for Margaret's political views and reform effort. Margaret began attending socialist meetings with Rachel. They both wrote for the Christian Socialist magazine. Margaret and Fred Jowett became the founder members the Bradford Branch of the Independent Labour Party. Margaret experienced her first personal success at political lobbying when she worked with Dr James Kerr, the medical superintendent of the Bradford School Board, undertaking the first medical inspection of elementary school children in Britain.
