Marion Pollock (1876 – 1957)
Mary (May) Pollock Grant was born on 2nd December 1876 in Partick, Glasgow, the eldest daughter of Dr Charles Martin Grant, the minister of St Mark's Parish in Dundee, and Eliza Muirhead. She was educated at the High School of Dundee and in Nordausques, France.
Marion worked as a Church of Scotland missionary in Scotland and spent time employed as an education Missionary in India.
After her return to Scotland, she joined the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1911. On 3rd December 1912 she was imprisoned for 5 days (under the name Marion Pollock) for smuggling herself into the Music Hall, Aberdeen. The suffragettes had hoped to disrupt a meeting addressed by David Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
After her release she continued to write letters to the press and attend public meetings. At the outbreak of World War One she enlisted as a nurse with the Voluntary Aid Detachment at Caird Hospital, Dundee. In 1916 she joined Margaret Damer Dawson's Women Police Service, working first in a munitions factory then serving in London first as a Constable, then as a Sergeant. By 1918 she had become Sub-Inspector. She left the service at the end of the war.
In her later life she joined the Liberal party and spent much of her time as a public lecturer discussing politics and social problems. She died in August 1957 in Tunbridge Wells.
Marion's case can be examined in a file held by National Records of Scotland.