MARGOT ASQUITH

(1864-1945, Society figure and wit)

Emma Alice Margaret Tennant, otherwise known as Margot, was born in Peeblesshire, the eleventh child of the (obviously tireless) Liberal industrialist, Sir Charles Tennant.

Although having little formal education the "unteachable and splendid" Margot was blessed with a brilliant, razor sharp mind and a tongue to match.

She married Herbert Asquith, then Liberal Home Secretary and later Prime Minister, and used her influential position in society to express her views in a forthright manner normally denied to women of the time. She had the personality to carry it off with aplomb.

Vibrant, witty and a natural show off, she was never backward in coming forward. "When I hear nonsense talked, it makes me physically ill not to contradict."

Her directness, however, when coupled with her acerbic wit could often lead to the kind of verbal cruelty of which Oscar Wilde himself would have been proud.

On one occasion, when her name was mispronounced by the American actress Jean Harlow, Margot announced to the assembled company that "The "t" is silent, as in "Harlow"."

Great stuff.

She knew all of the famous people of her day, and published a series of highly revealing reminiscences in which she recorded conversations with politicians, society figures and royalty, and her opinions of them all.

One leading figure of the day was deliberately excluded from any mention in her memoirs, as if he never existed. This was Lord Kitchener, whom Margot utterly hated and distrusted and of whom she said that if he was not a great man, he was, at least, a great poster.