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Knight Mary

Mary Knight Knight was a leading Communist Party and Labour Party member in Rusholme in Manchester, where she was a councillor up to the 1920s.   She had been a member of the long established […]

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Bamber Mary

Mary Bamber   Mary 'Ma' Bamber was born Mary Little in Edinburgh in 1874.   Her mother Margaret worked hard as a char lady and in other work to support her family, almost becoming destitute […]

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McLennan Mary

Mary McLennan Mary Reid was born in 1928 and brought up in poverty during the 1930s in the Gorbals area of Glasgow. Such an upbringing fuelled her desire to change the world and she met […]

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Rosser-Hicks Mary

Mary Rosser-Hicks   Mary Rosser was born in 1937 into a devout Roman Catholic family. Convent-educated, she moved in the late 1960s from Christian belief to Marxism, joining the Communist Party after being involved in […]

Encyclopedia of Communist Biographies

Ackland Mary Valentine

Mary Valentine Ackland The poet and Communist, Mary Ackland (pictured left), was born in London in 1906 to a wealthy family. She was briefly married at the age of 19 to Richard Turpin but this […]

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Docherty Mary

Mary  Doherty was born  on April 27 1908 in Cowdenbeath, where much of her political work was carried out. Her father was variously a miner and foundry worker. When unemployed as a result of his […]

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Litchfield Mary

Mary Litchfield A Communist teacher, who lived in Forfarshire and Fife, Mary Litchfield was prominent in Scottish literary circles in the 1930s. She knew Grassic Gibbon well, spending time with him and his wife; Edwin […]

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Brooksbank Mary

Mary Brooksbank Mary Brooksbank (nee Soutar) was born in Shiprow, Aberdeen, Scotland on 15th December 1897, in what Mary recalled was “one of the worst slums in the city”. Mary was one of ten children […]