Marie Randall

Marie Randall won a seat for St Peter Port on 31 January 1924, aged 42. That was four years after Nancy Astor took her seat at Westminster and 24 years before Jersey elected its first woman.

She was born in 1881 into the Randall brewing family and grew up at Vauxlaurens Brewery, now One St Julian’s. In the First World War she volunteered with the Voluntary Aid Detachment and nursed in Guernsey, Rouen, London, Belgium and Holland. From 1919 she sat on the general committee of the Victoria Hospital.

She stayed in the States for 31 years, until 1955, and for 24 of them she was the only woman in the chamber. She sat on many committees and remained on the island through the Occupation.

Her best-documented cause was the women’s vote. In 1933 she signed a petition from 14 deputies and others asking for the women’s voting age to be lowered from 30 to 20, to match men’s. It failed. She raised it again in 1938, and the age was cut to 20, taking effect after the war in 1945.

She received an MBE in 1954 and died on 27 January 1965. A family scrapbook praised her “charm, her good sense, her ability and her desire to do good”. On 24 January 2024, the centenary of her election, a blue plaque was unveiled at One St Julian’s.