Margaret Beavan

{{Short description|Beavan, Margaret (1875–1931), welfare worker and local politician}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

File:Margaret Beavan, Mayor of Liverpool, photo by Underwood & Underwood (cropped).jpg

Margaret Beavan (1877 – 22 February 1931) was an English politician who was the first female Lord Mayor of Liverpool in 1927.[http://blog.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/2014/03/international-womens-day-margaret-beavan-liverpools-first-woman-lord-mayor/ International Women’s Day – Margaret Beavan, Liverpool’s First Woman Lord Mayor], liverpoolmuseums.org.uk[http://www.merseyside-at-war.org/story/the-work-of-margaret-beavan/ The Work of Margaret Beavan], merseyside-at-war.org[http://www.liverpoolhiddenhistory.co.uk/little-mother-of-liverpool-meets-mussolini/LITTLE MOTHER OF LIVERPOOL MEETS MUSSOLINI] liverpoolhiddenhistory.co.uk{{Cite web |url=https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5tU3qJPIYtrSndiYWVUUGF5UjQ

|title=Liverpool City Council - Proceedings of the Council 1927-1928 page 5

|accessdate= 4 August 2017 }}

Beaven attended Belvedere School, and then the Royal Holloway College.{{cite book |title=Beaven, Margaret |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U205864 }} She was also educated at Liverpool Institute High School for Girls, in the same form as Maude Royden. Outside of her political career, she was a well known campaigner for the welfare of children and their mothers.{{cite book|author=Clare Debenham|title=Birth Control and the Rights of Women: Post-suffrage Feminism in the Early Twentieth Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IwpgAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT183|date=18 December 2013|publisher=I.B.Tauris|isbn=978-1-78076-435-1|pages=172–173}} She founded the Liverpool Child Welfare Association, Liverpool Open Air Hospital for Children, Royal Liverpool Babies Hospital, Ellen Gonner Convalescent Home, and the Tired Mothers' Rest Home.

In 1927, Beaven became the first woman Lord Mayor of Liverpool. At the 1929 United Kingdom general election, she stood unsuccessfully as a Conservative Party candidate in Liverpool Everton. She was also a member of the National Council of Women of Great Britain.