Mary Pollock Grant

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Mary Pollock Grant (2 December 1876 – August 1957) was a Scottish suffragette, policewoman, missionary and Liberal politician. She was born in Partick, Glasgow, the eldest daughter of Dr Charles Martin Grant, a Church of Scotland minister, and Eliza Muirhead Grant. She studied at the High School of Dundee and in Nordausques, France. She worked as a Church of Scotland missionary in Scotland and from 1905 as an educational missionary in India.

Returning to Scotland in 1911, she campaigned for women’s rights in Dundee with the militant Women's Social and Political Union. In December 1912 she was imprisoned at Perth for helping others infiltrate a Liberal meeting in Aberdeen to disrupt David Lloyd George’s visit. She used the name Marion Pollock in prison. In 1913 and 1914 she spoke against the Cat and Mouse Act and the force-feeding of suffragists, at public meetings in Aberdeen; she wrote letters to the press and was often removed from meetings for being disruptive. At one Labour meeting she was disguised as a widow to get in but was dragged out.

With the outbreak of World War I she served as a nurse with the Voluntary Aid Detachment at Caird Hospital in Dundee. In 1916 she joined the Women Police Service, working first in a munitions factory and then in London as a Constable, then a Sergeant, and by 1918 a Sub-Inspector. She left the service at the end of the war.

After the war she became involved in Liberal politics. By 1922 she lectured on politics and social issues and stood as Liberal candidate for Leeds South East in the general election, losing to Labour’s James O’Grady (with no Unionist candidate). After the Liberals reunited, she stood as a Liberal in Pontefract, but again failed to win. She also contested Salford West in 1928 and finished third.

In the 1930s she became a Christian Scientist and worked as a healer for about twenty years. She did civil defence work in London during World War II. She suffered a stroke in 1953 and died in August 1957 in Tunbridge Wells.