FIRST RATE

MARION MCMULLEN looks at America's famous First Ladies as Melania Trump heads back to the White House for Donald Trump's second term as Commander in Chief

- MARION MCMULLEN

WEALTH, intelligence and political clout.

America's First Ladies have never been content with just staying in the shadow of their famous husbands and were often powerful figures in their own right.

Martha Washington only stood about 5ft tall, but she cut a huge figure in America politics as the original First Lady.

She was a 27-year-old widow when she married America's first president, George Washington, in 1759. He was 6ft 2ins tall and she was eight months older than him.

Unlike many women of the time, Martha could read and write and, when George took office in 1789, she held weekly receptions for the important figures of the day who often referred to her as "Lady Washington".

She said: "I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances." Edith Bolling Galt Wilson was the second wife of American president Woodrow Wilson and took over many government duties when her husband was partially paralysed by a stroke in 1919.

She was referred to by some as the "Secret President".

Edith grew up the second of 11 children but ended up effectively ruling the US, and was the first First Lady to travel to Europe, to attend the Paris Peace Conference following the end of the First World War.

Woodrow proposed to Edith within weeks of first meeting her and she famously let a flock of sheep loose on the White House lawn to cut mowing costs and then auctioned off their wool in aid of the Red Cross.

Eleanor Roosevelt's husband Franklin served as president from 1933 to 1945.