New local history book – free to download

Churchill’s Maverick MP: The Tragic & Triumphant Life of Mavis Tate

By Mick Davis and David Lassman | 2026

The extraordinary story of Mavis Tate is today largely forgotten. This new 200-page biography by local authors Mick Davis and David Lassman brings her remarkable life into the spotlight.

Mavis Tate was MP for Frome from 1935 to 1945, during one of the most turbulent periods in British history. A fiercely independent politician with a formidable intellect and a sharp wit, she became involved in some of the most dramatic episodes of the Second World War — including playing a major role in Winston Churchill’s only wartime only political defeat. She was not afraid to get her hands dirty, either. Determined to see for herself how workers were being employed, she disguised herself as a factory worker and went undercover — something she could never have done openly as an MP.

Her political journey had begun years earlier in 1931, when she first entered the House of Commons. From there, an extraordinary career unfolded. She learnt to fly her own aeroplane and became an authority on the rapidly developing aviation industry. She campaigned relentlessly for sex equality, demanding equal pay for women playing their part in the wartime economy. She chaired numerous committees and became a familiar national figure through appearances on the BBC’s hugely popular Brains Trust, as well as nationwide Daily Express tours.

In 1934, she travelled to Germany and met senior Nazis, single-handedly securing the release of a mother and daughter from a pre-war Nazi prison camp.

After the war, Tate was the only woman MP in a parliamentary delegation that visited Buchenwald concentration camp. She witnessed first-hand the appalling conditions and atrocities uncovered there and subsequently fronted a Pathé News report bringing the horrors of the camp to British audiences. The experience appears to have had a devastating effect on her physical and mental health, and Tate took her own life in 1947, aged just 54.

Churchill’s Maverick MP is the result of many years of research and shines a new light on one of the most remarkable — and unjustly forgotten — women ever to sit in the House of Commons.

The complete 200-page book is available to download free of charge from the Frome Museum catalogue.