Mary Clifford

Mary Clifford (1842 – 19 January 1919) was a British politician, known as a pioneer of women serving on Boards of Guardians.

Life Born in Bristol, Clifford was the first born child of six children of Emily, (born Hassell) and the Reverend J. B. Clifford, vicar of St Matthew’s, Kingsdown.

When her friend Catherine Winkworth began the Clifton Association for the Higher Education of Women she attended the lectures. Essays she prepared on the content were well received by John Addington Symonds and Mandell Creighton.

The 1875 election of Martha Merington to a Board of Guardians had proven that women were eligible to serve on these bodies. Clifford and two other women stood for the Barton Regis Board of Guardians in 1882, and all three were elected. Clifford soon became the most prominent woman serving on a Board of Guardians, and developed a widely-adopted scheme for the fostering of orphans. She championed reductions in the power of abusive parents over their children, which were passed into law in 1889. Due to Clifford's prominence, she was co-opted to the Central Committee of Poor Law Conferences, serving on it for twelve years. In 1898, the Barton Regis Board was absorbed into the Bristol Board of Guardians, and Clifford continued to win election to the larger body. She frequently attended and spoke at the Church Congress, and her 1899 speech on missionary work overseas was widely reported.

Clifford was known for wearing a hooded bonnet and a long cloak, considered old-fashioned at the time, and this created a myth that she was a Quaker.

Clifford retired from the Bristol Board of Guardians in 1907, due to poor health, but she lived a further twelve years.