Margot Asquith

Emma Alice Margaret Asquith, Countess of Oxford and Asquith (née Tennant; 2 February 1864 – 28 July 1945), known as Margot Asquith, was a British socialite and author. She was married to British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith from 1894 to his death in 1928. Known for her wit, in late Victorian society she was a member of the famed aristocratic group of intellectuals called "The Souls". An opponent of women's suffrage, whose autobiography was lampooned, Lady Oxford and Asquith was a controversial yet colourful character in her time.

Early life

Emma Alice Margaret Tennant was born in 1864 at The Glen, the family's country estate in Peeblesshire, the 12th and youngest child of Sir Charles Tennant, 1st Baronet, an industrialist and politician, and Emma Winsloe. She never knew one of her five sisters and three of her six brothers, who died young. She was of Scottish and English descent and was a great-great-granddaughter of John Walter, founder of The Times. Known always as Margot, Tennant was brought up at The Glen; Asquith and her sister Laura grew up wild and uninhibited. Asquith was a "venturesome child", for example roaming the moors, climbing to the top of the roof by moonlight, riding her horse up the front steps of the estate house. Riding and golf were her lifelong passions.

The two girls were inseparable, entering society together in London in 1881. She and Laura became the central female figures of an aristocratic group of intellectuals called "The Souls" ("You are always talking about your souls," complained Lord Charles Beresford, thereby providing them with a suitable label). Laura married Alfred Lyttelton in 1885 and died in 1888, and Asquith's life was strongly impacted by these events.