Miss Mary Priestman

Other sources: https://www.parliament.uk/1866

Database linked sources: https://www.suffrageresources.org.uk/resource/3221/the-priestman-sisters
https://www.suffrageresources.org.uk/activity/3214/how-effective-was-the-votes-for-women-campaign-in-bristol

Family information: Sister to Anna Maria Priestman and Margaret Tanner, who also signed the 1866 petition. Related to the Bright family.

Additional Information: Mary signed the 1866 petition with her elder sister Anna and also refused to pay taxes in 1870 in protest at her exclusion from the vote ? a tactic reinvigorated in the suffrage movement with the formation of the Women's Tax Resistance League over 40 years later. When her sister Anna formed the Union of Practical Suffragists (UPS) (1896), Mary joined its executive committee. She also subscribed briefly to the WSPU with her sister in 1907, inspired by the achievements of Annie Kenney. She likely heard about Annie Kenney from pioneering feminist and suffragist Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy, whom she was close to and took care of financially after the death of her husband. Like her sister, Mary also withdrew her support when the WSPU became more violently militant.

Other Suffrage Activities: A Quaker, Mary was very involved with the campaign to Repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts and was also president of the British Women's Temperance Association in Bristol. She and her elder sister Anna formed the first branch of the National Union of Women Workers (to protect their jobs and improve social conditions) in Bristol and in 1889, again with her sister, opened a soup kitchen for striking Bristol cotton workers. Mary seems to have been incredibly close to her elder sister and the two died within five days of one another in 1914.