A History of London in 50 Lives

The second lady MP and the first to take her seat in Parliament, Lady Astor was such an energetic Hitler appeaser, so famously stern and aggressively teetotal that it is tempting to wonder what she would make of her London home these days. No. 4 St James’s Square, a precious and unique early eighteenth-century survivor complete with an extensive garden and its own mews, is now home to the Naval & Military Club. There are today a few female members, it is true, but most of the members in the club’s illustrio