Mary Grant was the Liberal candidate for Leeds South East in 1922, for Pontefract in 1923 and for Salford West in 1929. Raised in Dundee, she went to India in 1905 as an educational missionary for the Church of Scotland, returning in 1911 to join the campaign for women’s suffrage. During the First World War, she served as a VAD nurse and then a policewoman in munitions factories across the country.
After losing in 1922, she said she had been inundated with surveys from various groups – including undertakers, who wanted to know if she could make coffin handles cheaper. Responding to hecklers who said women should be at home with their children, she replied that as she didn’t have any, she should “go to parliament to make things better for other people’s children”.
Stephen Brasher
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