Too Young To Vote— Yet Elected to Parliament

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 672, 25 May 1929, Page 18

Too Young To Vote — Yet Elected to Parliament

ISS JENNY LEE, the 24-years-old school Lj.yj . teacher who recently won North Lanark for the Socialists, and took her seat for a brief period in Parliament was the youngest woman M.P. in the House of Commons, and at the time of her election was not entitled to a vote; “1 knew our Jenny would get in,” Sirs. Lee told a reporter. She stood by her daughter all the morning during the counting of the votes at Glasgow, and when the result was announced Miss Lee blushed happily and made her way to her mother’s side to receive her kiss of congratulation. Her first action when she got away from the crowd was to send a telegram to her aged grandfather, who was awaiting the news at his little

cottage home at Dunfermline, Fifeshire. “I am very well pleased," her grandfather said. *‘She will be satisfied now, for she has been wanting it all her life." He continued: “She is a miner’s lassie. I was a miner and her father was a miner. At school she was always a clever lassie, right from the time she was at the top of her class at the little elementary school at Cowdenbeath. “From there she won a scholarship to the higher-grade school and went on to Edinburgh University, where she graduated M.A. and LL.B. At the university she almost paid her way by bursaries." “I am just a wee bit tired, but it has been -worth it," said Miss Lee. She was the guest of honour at a “victory ball" and danced several times.