Mary Barbour

Mary Barbour (1875–1958),  Scottish political activist and community leader.  She led the 1915 rent strike in the city of Glasgow when women in ‘Mrs Barbour’s Army’ marched alongside male workers to protest at unscrupulous property owners putting up rents and evicting tenants who could not pay. The campaign was successful and led to the Rent Restriction Act (1915). This sculpture, which was erected by the Remember Mary Barbour Association, depicts Barbour leading her ‘army’. In 1920 she was elected one of Glasgow’s first women councillors. In 1924 she became Glasgow Corporation’s first Bailie and was one of the first women magistrates in Glasgow. She championed issues such as maternity benefit, education and equal voting rights and she established Glasgow’s first family planning clinic.

Location: Govan Cross, Glasgow.