Astor

Prominent US and British family. John Jacob Astor (1763-1848) emigrated from Germany to the USA in 1783, and became a millionaire. His great-grandson Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor (1879-1952), was a British politician, and served as Conservative member of Parliament for Plymouth from 1910 to 1919, when he succeeded to the peerage. His US-born wife Nancy Witcher Langhorne, Lady Astor (1879-1964), was the first woman member of Parliament to take a seat in the House of Commons, when she succeeded her husband in the constituency of Plymouth in November 1919. She remained in parliament until 1945, as an active champion of women's rights, educational issues, and temperance.

William Backhouse Astor (1792-1875) was known as the ‘landlord of New York’. John Jacob Astor's grandson William Waldorf Astor (1848-1919), was a US diplomat and writer. In 1893 he bought the Pall Mall Gazette, and founded the Pall Mall Magazine. He became naturalized British in 1899.