Q 01/05

In which Lincolnshire town was Margaret Roberts born in October 1925?

A) Grantham

B) Lincoln

C) Boston

D) Stamford

Answer · why

A) Grantham

She and her elder sister Muriel were raised in the flat above the family shops on North Parade.

Q 02/05

What kind of business did her father Alfred Roberts, an alderman and lay preacher, run?

A) A butcher's shop

B) A grocery shop

C) A pub

D) A bookshop

Answer · why

B) A grocery shop

He also owned a tobacconist's, served as mayor in 1945–46, and lost his aldermanship when Labour took the council in 1952.

Q 03/05

Which subject did she read at Oxford?

A) Physics

B) Medicine

C) Chemistry

D) Economics

Answer · why

C) Chemistry

She later said she was prouder of being the first prime minister with a science degree than of being the first woman in the job.

Q 04/05

Which women's college was she at in Oxford, one she tried as prime minister to keep single-sex?

A) St Hilda's

B) Lady Margaret Hall

C) St Hugh's

D) Somerville

Answer · why

D) Somerville

She arrived a year early in October 1943 after another scholarship candidate withdrew.

Q 05/05

Which X-ray crystallographer, later a Nobel laureate, was her tutor and thesis supervisor at university?

A) Dorothy Hodgkin

B) Rosalind Franklin

C) Kathleen Lonsdale

D) Marie Stopes

Answer · why

A) Dorothy Hodgkin

Tutor and pupil corresponded into the 1980s, and a portrait of the scientist hung in 10 Downing Street.