Margaret Aitken

Margaret Aitken (July 3, 1906 – November 19, 1980) was a Canadian author, columnist, journalist, and politician. Background Aitken was born in Newcastle, New Brunswick. She attended Branksome Hall in Toronto. She was the daughter of Joseph Magnus 'Mauns' Aitken and her uncle was Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook. Her brother, William Aitken and his son Jonathan Aitken (her nephew) were members of the British House of Commons. She started with the Toronto Telegram in 1938 and was a foreign correspondent. She was noted for covering the birth of Israel as a nation and she became a strong supporter of the Jewish state. In 1953, she wrote a book Hey Ma! I Did It (Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Company) about her political campaign in the same year. Politics In the 1953 federal election, she was elected to the House of Commons of Canada in the riding of York—Humber as the Progressive Conservative candidate, winning by 67 votes. Along with Sybil Bennett, Ellen Fairclough and Ann Shipley, she was one of four women elected to the House of Commons that year, only the second election in Canadian history in which more than one woman was elected to Parliament.