Editing Margaret Thatcher (section)

===Post-Oxford career (1947–1951)===
After graduating, Roberts secured a position as a research chemist for British Xylonite ([[BX Plastics]]) following a series of interviews arranged by Oxford; she subsequently moved to [[Colchester]] in Essex to work at the firm.{{sfnmp|1a1=Beckett|1y=2006|1p=17|2a1=Agar|2y=2011}} Little is known about her brief time there.{{sfnp|Agar|2011}} By her own account, she was initially enthusiastic about the position, as she had been intended to function as a personal assistant to the company's head of research and development, providing opportunities to learn about [[operations management]]: "But on my arrival it was decided that there was not enough to do in that capacity."{{sfnp|Agar|2022}} Instead, she seems to have researched methods of attaching [[polyvinyl chloride]] (PVC) to metals.{{sfnp|Agar|2011}} While with the firm, she joined the [[Association of Scientific Workers]].{{sfnp|Agar|2011}} In 1948, she applied for a job at [[Imperial Chemical Industries]] (ICI) but was rejected after the personnel department assessed her as "headstrong, obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated".<ref name="BBC2013">{{Cite news |date=8 April 2013 |title=In quotes: Margaret Thatcher |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10377842 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190408090853/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10377842 |archive-date=8 April 2019 |access-date=12 April 2013 |work=BBC News}}</ref> Jon Agar in ''[[Notes and Records]]'' argues that her understanding of modern scientific research later impacted her views as prime minister.{{sfnp|Agar|2011}}

Roberts joined the local [[Conservative Association]] and attended the party conference at [[Llandudno]], Wales, in 1948, as a representative of the University Graduate Conservative Association.{{sfnp|Beckett|2006|p=22}}  Meanwhile, she became a high-ranking affiliate of the [[Vermin Club]],<ref>{{Cite news |last=Moore |first=Charles |date=5 February 2009 |title=Golly: now we know what's truly offensive |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/4520977/Golly-now-we-know-whats-truly-offensive.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190205043254/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/4520977/Golly-now-we-know-whats-truly-offensive.html |archive-date=5 February 2019 |access-date=29 April 2017 |work=The Telegraph}}</ref><ref name="Vermin">{{Cite magazine |last=J.C. |date=21 October 2012 |title=Gaffe-ology: why Mitchell had to go |url=https://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2012/10/political-crises |url-access=registration |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191021232133/https://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2012/10/political-crises |archive-date=21 October 2019 |access-date=29 April 2017 |magazine=[[The Economist]] |quote=In 1948 Aneurin Bevan called the Conservative Party 'lower than vermin' [...] The Tories embraced the phrase; some formed the Vermin Club in response (Margaret Thatcher was a member).}}</ref> a group of grassroots Conservatives formed in response to a derogatory comment made by [[Aneurin Bevan]].{{r|Vermin}} One of her Oxford friends was also a friend of the Chair of the [[Dartford]] Conservative Association in [[Kent]], who were looking for candidates.{{sfnp|Beckett|2006|p=22}} Officials of the association were so impressed by her that they asked her to apply, even though she was not on the party's approved list; she was selected in January 1950 (aged 24) and added to the approved list [[wikt:post ante|''post ante'']].{{sfnp|Blundell|2008|p=36}}

At a dinner following her formal adoption as Conservative candidate for Dartford in February 1949, she met divorcé [[Denis Thatcher]], a successful and wealthy businessman, who drove her to her Essex train.{{sfnmp|1a1=Beckett|1y=2006|1p=22|2a1=Blundell|2y=2008|2p=36}} After their first meeting, she described him to Muriel as "not a very attractive creature – very reserved but quite nice".{{r|Oxford1}} In preparation for the election, Roberts moved to Dartford, while she supported herself by working as a research chemist for [[J. Lyons and Co.]] in [[Hammersmith]], reportedly as part of a team developing [[emulsifier]]s for [[ice cream]].{{sfnmp|1a1=Beckett|1y=2006|1p=22|2a1=''New Scientist''|2y=1983}} As the work was more theoretical in nature than during her prior role with BX Plastics, Roberts found it "more satisfying".{{sfnp|Agar|2022}} While at Lyons, she worked under the supervision of Hans Jellinek, who headed the company's physical chemistry section.{{sfnmp|1a1=Agar|1y=2022|2a1=Jellinek|2y=1979}} Jellinek assigned her to research the [[saponification]] of α-monostearin ([[glycerol monostearate]]), which has properties as an emulsifier, stabiliser and food preservative. Agar has noted the research may have been connected with the emulsification of ice cream, but only as a possibility.{{sfnp|Agar|2022}} In September 1951, their research was published in the ''[[Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture]]'', a recently launched publication of the [[Society of Chemical Industry]],{{sfnp|Agar|2022}} as "The saponification of α-monostearin in a monolayer".{{sfnp|Jellinek|Roberts|1951}} This would be Roberts's sole scientific publication.{{sfnp|Agar|2022}} In 1979, following his former assistant's election as prime minister, Jellinek, by then a professor of physical chemistry at [[Clarkson University]] in the United States, said she had done "a very good job" on the project, "showing great determination".{{sfnp|Jellinek|1979}} She sent Jellinek a congratulatory letter upon his retirement in 1984, and another letter shortly before his death two years later.{{sfnp|Kerker|1987}}

Roberts married at [[Wesley's Chapel]] and her children were baptised there,<ref>{{Cite Hansard |title=Death of a Member: Baroness Thatcher |house=House of Lords |date=10 April 2013 |volume=744 |url=https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2013-04-10/debates/1304101000196/DeathOfAMemberBaronessThatcher |page=1154 |access-date=22 October 2020}}</ref> but she and her husband began attending [[Church of England]] services and would later convert to [[Anglicanism]].<ref name="Belz">{{Cite news |last=Belz |first=Mindy |date=4 May 2013 |title=Weather maker |url=https://world.wng.org/2013/04/weather_maker |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190203055950/https://world.wng.org/2013/04/weather_maker |archive-date=3 February 2019 |access-date=10 January 2017 |work=[[World (magazine)|World]]}}</ref><ref name="Filby">{{Cite news |last=Filby |first=Eliza |date=14 April 2013 |title=Margaret Thatcher: her unswerving faith shaped by her father |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9992424/Margaret-Thatcher-her-unswerving-faith-shaped-by-her-father.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190205050323/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9992424/Margaret-Thatcher-her-unswerving-faith-shaped-by-her-father.html |archive-date=5 February 2019 |access-date=10 January 2017 |work=The Telegraph}}</ref>