Mary Whitmore

Mary Whitmore (née Fletcher) (17 September 1884 – 19 July 1974) was an English social activist who was the first woman to be Mayor of Ipswich, in 1946–47.

Early life Whitmore was born Mary Fletcher in 1884 in Whitton, Suffolk, to Isaac Fletcher and his wife Rosetta (née Elliott). She won a scholarship to Ipswich Higher Grade School in 1895. By 1901 she was a pupil teacher at a board school. She later trained as a teacher at Whitelands College.

Career Whitmore was a suffragette, and was a founder member of the Ipswich branch of the Women's Social and Political Union. She was a founder member of the Ipswich Workers' Educational Association, and was its secretary from 1929 to 1939.

For many years she taught at Nacton Road Mixed School.

Personal life Whitmore married James Offer William Whitmore (1882-1944) in 1922. He had previously been married to Eva Martha Pryke (1883-1920). Mary and James had one daughter, Enid (1923-2016),

Whitmore died in 1974, aged 89, at the Rectory at Belchamp Otten, in Essex; her son-in-law, Canon Trevor Howard, was Rector of St Ethelbert & All Saints, Belchamp Otten, 1959–93.