Mary Elizabeth Phillips was a suffrage campaigner, feminist and socialist. She worked for Christabel Pankhurst and the Women's Social and Political Union, and later joined Sylvia Pankhurst's Women's Suffrage Federation.
Mary was raised in Glasgow by her parents, Doctor William and Louisa Phillips. Her father encouraged her to become a women's rights campaigner, and in 1904 she became a paid official of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Association for Women's Suffrage, later joining the more radical Women's Social and Political Union as a paid Organiser. She established the Glasgow branch of the WSPU.
Mary Phillips was sent to Holloway prison for obstructing the police in Parliament Square on 30 June 1908. On her release she was greeted by a group of Suffragettes, led by Flora Drummond, attired in full Scottish regalia and accompanied by pipers. She and her parents were transported in a carriage from Holloway Prison to a reception at Queen's Hall.
She wrote for the socialist newspaper Forward from 1907 to 1909, and took part in many of the great Suffragette protests and processions. She was abruptly sacked by Christabel Pankhurst in July 1913, by a letter claiming she was 'not effective as a district organiser'. She began to work with Sylvia Pankhurst instead, who shared her left-wing politics. She began to use the alias Margaret or Mary Paterson to interfere with police surveillance.
In October 1913 'Margret Paterson' was one of 9 women and 2 men arrested during scuffles with the police as they attempted to re-arrest Annie Kenney as she delivered a speech on the stage of the London Pavilion. For attempting to prevent the rearrest Margaret received a sentence of 20 days in Holloway. In February 1914 Margaret was found guilty of obstruction during a scuffle with police that followed the rearrest of Sylvia Pankhurst as she attempted to join members of the East London Federation of Suffragettes for a demonstration in Trafalgar Square. She served four terms of imprisonment and was a hunger striker.
She was later involved with the Suffragette Fellowship and in 1956 wrote a pamphlet, The Militant Suffrage Campaign in Perspective, to keep the memory of the Suffragette cause alive.