{{Short description|British political activist}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Mary Gertrude Emmott | birth_name = Mary Gertrude Lees | birth_date = {{Birth date|1866|04|28|df=yes}}<ref name=odnb/> | birth_place = Waterhead Mill, Lancashire (now Greater Manchester), England | death_date = {{Death date and age|1954|11|16|1866|04|28|df=yes}} | family = Alfred Emmott, 1st Baron Emmott (husband) | awards = Queen Elisabeth Medal }} '''Mary Gertrude Emmott, Baroness Emmott of Oldham''' JP (28 April 1866 – 16 November 1954) was a British political activist.
== Life == Emmott was born '''Mary Gertrude Lees''' in Waterhead Mill, Oldham, Lancashire (now part of Greater Manchester),<ref name=odnb>{{Cite book|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-369107|title=Oxford dictionary of national biography|isbn=978-0-198-61412-8|edition=Online|location=Oxford|doi=10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.369107|oclc=56568095}}{{subscription required}}</ref> and studied at Queen's College, London. She married Alfred Emmott, a local Liberal Party councillor on 5 October 1887; they had two children.<ref name=law/><ref name=peerage/> She became involved in liberal politics, was a founder member of the local branch of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and the main founder of a local branch of the National Union of Women Workers (NUWW).<ref name="law">"Emmott, Lady Mary Gertrude (Mrs Alfred Emmott, Baroness Emmott of Oldham) (née Lees) OBE, JP", ''Women: a modern political dictionary'', pp.58–59</ref>
In 1898, Emmott was elected to the Oldham Board of Guardians, becoming its first female member. The following year, Alfred was elected as a Member of Parliament, and the couple relocated to London. There, she became a vice-chair of the national Women's Liberal Federation, served on the executive of the London Society for Women's Suffrage, and chaired the NUWW's Parliamentary and Legislation Committee. In 1911, Alfred was raised to the peerage, Mary thereby becoming Baroness Emmott.<ref name="law" /> She was appointed a Justice of the Peace.<ref name=peerage>{{cite book|url=https://www.thepeerage.com/p3114.htm#i31139|first=L. G.|last=Pine|title=The New Extinct Peerage 1884–1971: Containing Extinct, Abeyant, Dormant and Suspended Peerages With Genealogies and Arms|location=London|publisher=Heraldry Today|year=1972|page=116}}</ref>
During World War I, Emmott spent her time supporting Belgian refugees and, as a result, received the Queen Elisabeth Medal. At the 1922 United Kingdom general election, she stood for the Oldham seat herself, but took a distant fifth place.
In 1932-33, she served on a Royal Commission investigating the regulation of gambling.<ref name="harrison">{{cite web |last1=Harrison |first1=Elaine |title=Office-Holders in Modern Britain: Volume 10, Officials of Royal Commissions of Inquiry 1870-1939. |url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/office-holders/vol10/ |website=British History Online |access-date=9 March 2026}}</ref> She remained active on the committees of many organisations, principally feminist and women's groups, for the remainder of her life, and was serving as the president of the Fawcett Society in 1954, when she died.<ref name="law" />
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * [https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N13998987 Emmott, Mary Gertrude (1886–1954), wife of 1st Baron Emmott] – link to papers of official committees on which she sat (held in London School of Economics, The Women's Library)
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Emmott, Mary}} Category:1866 births Category:1954 deaths Category:British baronesses by marriage Category:English suffragists Category:Liberal Party (UK) parliamentary candidates Category:People educated at Queen's College, London Category:People from Oldham Category:National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children people Category:British women civil rights activists