Speaker of the House of Commons (United Kingdom) Commons. Their names are inscribed in gold leaf around the upper walls of Room C of the House of Commons Library. The three most recent Speakers have been notable for a series of firsts. Betty Boothroyd, elected in 1992, was the first woman Speaker. Michael Martin, elected in 2000, was the first Roman Catholic Speaker since the Reformation. John Bercow, elected in 2009, is the first Jewish Speaker. By convention, Speakers have traditionally been addressed in Parliament as "Mr Speaker", and their deputies as "Mr Deputy Speaker", regardless of their gender or their usual title. Betty Boothroyd was, at her
Speaker of the House of Commons (United Kingdom) examine the suggestion. The committee, chaired by former Prime Minister David Lloyd George, reported in April 1939 that no change should be made; it found that preventing opposition to a sitting Speaker would be "a serious infringement of democratic principles" and that "to alter the status of the Speaker so that he ceased to be returned to the House of Commons by the same electoral methods as other members or as a representative of a Parliamentary constituency would be equally repugnant to the custom and tradition of the House". With the outbreak of the Second World War, no general election