Tennant, Margaret Mary Edith (May) (née Abraham) (1869–1946), promoter of workers’ rights and public health, was born 5 April 1869 at Rathgar, Co. Dublin, the only daughter of Dr George Whitley Abraham, a lawyer in the civil service, and his wife, Margaret, daughter of Cornelius Curtain. She was educated at home by her father. Following his death in 1887, finding herself in financial straits, she moved to London, where she took lodgings in Bloomsbury and worked for Lady Emilia Dilke. Dilke was a social reformer and an advocate of trade unions for women, and as her secretary Margaret gained first-hand experience of the exploitative and unsanitary conditions afflicting women working in industry, a cause that she would devote the next decade to ameliorating. She was treasurer of the Womens’ Trade Union League, where she negotiated with employers on behalf of league members, organised meetings, and sent deputations to the house of commons. From 1881 she coordinated a successful campaign to render regular government inspections of laundries mandatory (legislation was passed to this effect in 1908).
Her dedication to her work soon attracted wider recognition, and in 1891 she was appointed an assistant commissioner to undertake field inquiries for the Royal Labour Commission. In this capacity she travelled incessantly throughout England and Ireland, gathering information and writing reports on often appalling working conditions. It was mainly because of this work that in 1893 the home secretary appointed her the first female factory inspector in England. Her new position marked a career shift from agitator to skilful and effective administrator. Travelling incessantly, the inspectors targeted illegal overtime, poor sanitation, and dangerous trades. In her first year alone Margaret brought eighty prosecutions for illegal overtime.
In 1895 she served on a departmental committee at the Home Office on dangerous trades, where she met Harold John Tennant, liberal MP for Berwick (1894–1918). The couple were married the following year, and had four sons and one daughter. By 1896 Margaret was the superintending inspector of five more women inspectors, and her extensive experience in workers’ rights and public health was reflected in the book she published in that year, The law relating to factories and workshops (which ran to six editions). She found it increasingly difficult to balance the pressures of her work with the demands of her private life, and she resigned her post soon after her marriage. However, she remained a committed social activist, serving as chairman of the industrial law committee and on the royal commission on divorce (1909). She was also an original member and treasurer of the central committee on women's employment (1914–39). During the first world war she was chief adviser on women's welfare to the Ministry of Munitions and director of the women's section of the National Service Department. In recognition of her services the British government awarded her the Companion of Honour in 1917, the same year that her eldest son, Harry, died while on active service. Between the wars she turned her attention to women's health, campaigning to improve maternal mortality and nursing care. During the second world war, despite her failing health, she worked for the RAF Benevolent Fund. She was a member of the Central Consultative Council of Voluntary Organisations and the National Association for Prevention of Tuberculosis, chairman of the maternal health committee, governor of Bedford College, and a JP. She was also a director of the Mysore and Champion Reef Gold Mines, an enterprise of her husband's family, and in this capacity travelled to India and New Zealand in the mid 1920s.
The Tennants had homes in Edinglasserie, Aberdeenshire, and at 12 Victoria Square, London, as well as a restored country house, Great Maytham, at Rolvenden in Kent. Margaret was a noted authority on gardening, and was director of the Gardener's Chronicle (other interests included fishing, tennis, and gambling). After her husband's death in 1935 she moved to a smaller house named Cornhill at Great Maytham, where she died 11 July 1946. Some of her correspondence is in the British Library, London.