Marion Phillips (29 October 1881 – 23 January 1932) was a Labour Party politician and Member of Parliament in England. Early life and education Marion Philllips was born on 29 October 1881 in Melbourne, Australia. Her parents were Phillip Phillips, a lawyer, and Rose Asher, who was from New Zealand. She was educated at the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne and University of Melbourne, graduating in 1903. In 1904, she began a research scholarship at the London School of Economics, graduating as a Doctor of Science in 1907, with a thesis about the development of New South Wales. Between 1906 and 1910, she worked under the direction of Beatrice Webb on a commission investigating the Poor Laws. Career A member of the Women's Labour League from 1908, she became its secretary in 1912. She also edited the League's leaflet, which by 1913 became Labour Woman. When World War I broke out she became a member of the War Emergency Workers' National Committee. In 1916, Phillips was present at the formation of the Standing Joint Committee of Industrial Women's Organisations. Phillips was its secretary between 1917 and 1932. Phillips also served on a number of government committees before a woman had been elected to the country's parliament. The most significant were the Consumer Council of the Ministry of Food and the Women's Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Reconstruction. Unlike prominent suffragettes, her vision was not concentrated upon extending the franchise, she wanted state interventions in the free market to be better informed by considerations of life outside the workplace. As a leader of the Women's Labour League, she described its role as "keeping the Labour Party well informed of the needs of women and providing women with the means of becoming educated in political matters". In this endeavour she provoked about a quarter of a million housewives to take part in the labour movement and helped popularise issues such as equality for women in the workplace, school meals, clinics and playspaces for children, the fundamental value of mothering, a more humanitarian, safety-conscious, approach to the design of homes for ordinary families, and an eradication of needless drudgery and squalour from home life. Together with Margaret Bondfield, Phillips "worked tirelessly within the WLL to raise the political consciousness of women and encourage their participation." It has been noted of Phillips and Bondfield that "although there was some tension between the two at