On this day, 15 December 1897 Scottish mill worker, songwriter and socialist Mary Brooksbank was born in Aberdeen. Growing up in poverty, her baby brother died of diphtheria before the age of three.
Moving to Dundee, Brooksbank began work in jute mills aged 11, and at 14 engaged in her first strike for a pay increase after a young woman walked around the area mills blowing a whistle to call the workers out on strike.
Brooksbank later got involved in opposition to World War I, and founded the Working Women Guild to fight for better health and social services, and was active in organising women workers on the railways. She was imprisoned three times in her life for her activities, which she continued until her death aged 82.
Brooksbank's songs were mostly about working class life, and perhaps her most famous work, The Jute Mill, includes the lines:
"Oh dear me, the world is ill-divided,/Them that works the hardest are the least provided./I maun work the harder, dark days or fine,/Tae feed and cled my bairnies affen ten and nine."
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/8655/mary-brooksbank
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