Skip to main content
The Morning Star Shop
Margaret MacDonald’s forgotten socialist legacy
MAT COWARD resurrects the radical spirit of early Labour’s overlooked matriarch, whose tireless activism and financial support laid the foundations for the party’s early success
A monument to Margaret MacDonald in London

“IMPOSSIBLE you say? If it is impossible we must start at once,” was Margaret MacDonald’s response to naysayers, doubting her latest scheme for the advancement of socialism.

Impossible wasn’t really a concept she had much time for. It’s a dull inevitability that today she is remembered mainly as the wife of prime minister Ramsay McDonald; there was a bit more to her than just that.

Margaret Gladstone was born in London in 1870, the daughter of a chemistry professor who was one of the founders of the YMCA.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
battle of bexley square
Working Class History / 11 October 2025
11 October 2025

MAT COWARD looks back to a 1931 protest against mass unemployment featuring a young Ewan MacColl

crime
Crime fiction / 7 October 2025
7 October 2025

Cat show killer, avenging the pawns, women hunt the Ripper, and running dry in the outback

 

Chilli pepper. Photo: Pixabay
Gardening / 4 October 2025
4 October 2025

Spice up your life – and your greenhouse – with MAT COWARD’s gardening tips

CRIME
Crime fiction / 9 September 2025
9 September 2025

Doomed adolescents, when the missing person is you, classic whodunnit, and an anti-capitalist eco-thriller

Similar stories
Tom Wharton
Rebel Britannia / 23 August 2025
23 August 2025

‘Honest’ Tom Wharton’s 1682 drunken rampage through St Mary’s church haunted his political career, but his satirical song Lillibullero helped topple Catholic James II during the Glorious Revolution, writes MAT COWARD

INNOVATOR: Postgate, pictured in 1970
Features / 6 April 2025
6 April 2025
MAT COWARD introduces the creator of the Good Food Guide, communist and crime fiction writer – Raymond Postgate
Features / 1 February 2025
1 February 2025
MAT COWARD tells of a pioneering suffragette and one of the first direct actionists, who’s commemorated in a street name in Swindon
Features / 30 October 2024
30 October 2024
From aristocratic upbringing to undercover communist courier and finally respected labour historian, MAT COWARD chronicles how personal tragedy and socialist conviction shaped an extraordinary activist’s journey