Mrs John (Mary Anne) Plummer

Other sources: https://www.parliament.uk/1866
https://womanandhersphere.com/tag/1866-womens-suffrage-petition

Family information: Married to John Plummer. See More Suffrage Activity.

Additional Information: Mary had collected signatures for the 1866 petition locally. She managed to obtain nine signatures but wrote to Helen Taylor: 'It is a matter of regret to me that I have not been able to obtain more, but Mr Plummer has been lately so much taken up with the business of Victoria Park that I have been unable to get out so much as usual. It will always afford me much pleasure to help you... in any such matters and I am sure that the same may be said of my husband.'

Other Suffrage Activities: Mary's husband John had been left deaf and lame through an early childhood illness, and his family had been too poor to provide him with an education. He was a factory worker when Mary met him but, remarkably, John educated himself, became well known locally as a Labour activist, and published a book in 1859: Freedom of Labour. He later described himself as a newspaper editor and worked on a range of magazines. He met John Stuart Mill, the begetter of the 1866 suffrage petition, who described him as among the 'most inspiring examples of mental cultivation and high principle in a self-instructed working man'.