Mrs Norah Runge was the Unionist MP for Rotherhithe from 1931 until 1935 and afterwards was long serving Alderman on the London County Council. She chaired the Horton Hospital Management Committee from 1948 until 1952 At the time of her death she was identified as the longest-lived of the women who had become British MPs.
Norah Cecil Hasluck was born in London in 1884. She was the daughter of Lawrence Hasluck. She was educated privately and in 1906 married Julius Joseph .Runge (1881-1935). He was a partner in his father’s firm of sugar refiners, served as manager and secretary of the wartime Royal Commission on Sugar Supply, and served successively on the Boards of Abram Lyle and Sons Ltd and Tate and Lyle. They moved from Westbourne Terrace to Kippington House, Sevenoaks in 1927 and acquired also St John’s House, Smith Square as their residence in London. They had three sons, one of whom, Sir Peter Runge (1909 -1970) served as Chairman of the British Export Council. Two of her sons predeceased her. Her daughter, Margaret, married Niall Macpherson, later Lord Drumalbyn on 27 Ju 1937.
Her first husband died suddenly, but not unexpectedly after a long illness, on 8 December 1935.
During the First World War Norah Runge was the Superintendent of the Soldiers and Sailors Free Buffet at Paddington Station 1915-19, work for which she was awarded the OBE in March 1918.
She was elected as MP for Rotherhithe in the 1931 General Election, overturning a five figure Labour majority and defeating Benjamin Smith by 130 votes. He in turn defeated her in 1935. She contested the seat again in 1945 but was not successful.
Her maiden speech was made in favour of local option in the Sunday opening of cinemas. She confessed that she was not a cinemagoer, but thought that her poorer constituents would particularly benefit from the move.
She was a powerful advocate of slum clearance, and recognizing that the problem was the decanting of the existing residents while new properties were readied suggested using the London parks to provide sites for temporary accommodation. Her suggestions were, after a year’s delay, taken up by the Ministry of Health.
She had accepted the Presidency of the Rotherhithe Conservative Association in 1932 and remained in post until 1946.
She was elected an Alderman of the London County Council in 1937 and served as deputy Chairman 1951-2. She stood down in 1961.
She chaired the London Area Women’s Advisory Committee 1938-43 and was Vice Chairman of the Central Women’s Advisory Committee of the National Union in 1941-2. From 1943 until 1945 she served as President of the London Area’s Women’s Advisory Committee. She was also Vice Chairman of the London Conservative Union Council 1940-47.
During the Second World War she was active in civil defiance in Bermondsey and also worked for the POW department of the Red Cross from 1941 until 1945.
In 1948 she was appointed Chairman of the Horton Hospital Management Committee, retiring in 1952, and she served also from 1948 until 1960 as a member of the Board of Governors of the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospital. She had remarried in 1939 and her new husband, who died in 1941, was the psychiatrist Dr Thomas Arthur Ross FRCP.
After her final retirement from politics she set up an antiques shop in Chelsea and continued to run it until late in her life.
She died at St John’s House on 6 June 1978 at the age of 93..