Her birth was registered in the Salford district of
Lancashire on 14 May 1854. She was the daughter of
Henry Davis Pochin, a noted industrialist and chemist, and his wife,
Agnes (
née Heap), a leading women's rights activist. She married the journalist and Liberal MP
Charles McLaren, a business associate of her father's, at
Westminster on 6 March 1877. Charles McLaren was later created
Baron Aberconway. They had four children. Laura McLaren's two sons became Liberal MP's,
Henry D. McLaren for the
West Staffordshire constituency and,
Francis McLaren for the
Spalding constituency in Lincolnshire. Francis married
Barbara Jekyll, a niece of the famous garden designer
Gertrude Jekyll. He was killed in a flying accident in 1917. Her daughter
Priscilla, also a noted activist and suffragist, married
Sir Henry Norman and, with him, developed gardens at
Ramster Hall, Surrey. Laura's other daughter, Elsie Dorothea, married
Sir Edward Johnson-Ferguson, 2nd Baronet. Baroness Aberconway was a campaigner for
women's suffrage, founding the Liberal Women's Suffrage Union and publishing some writings on the subject. During
World War I, she converted her house in London into a hospital and helped run it. She died in 1933 at her home,
Château de la Garoupe, on the
Cap d’Antibes in France. ==Awards and honors==