On her death in 1946, the Guardian said of Eleanor Rathbone, 'No parliamentary career has been more useful and fruitful' .
Eleanor Rathbone was without doubt one of the greatest women MPs of this country. She was the pioneer of the Family Allowance (which became Child Benefit), a tireless campaigner for the rights of women both in Britain and abroad, and leader of the campaign to release the thousands of Jews interned as 'enemy aliens' during the war.
Susan Penderson, author of a new biography of Eleanor Rathbone joins Jenni to discuss why she's so little known today.
'Eleanor Rathbone and the Politics of Conscience'
by Susan Pederson,
published by Yale University Press;
ISBN: 0300102453
