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23
Jul
Plaque unveiled to honour woman who was 'one of Harrogate's most beloved citizens'
The first female Mayor of Harrogate was honoured yesterday (Tuesday, July 22) with the unveiling of a brown plaque outside her former home.
Mary Fisher MBE devoted more than 60 years of her life to public and social service, and on her death in 1972 was described in the Harrogate Herald newspaper as “one of the town’s most beloved citizens”.
About 40 people gathered at 1 Mount Parade in the town centre to watch the plaque being unveiled by Mrs Fisher’s present-day successor, the current Mayor of Harrogate Cllr Chris Aldred.
The event was introduced by Michael Newby, chair of Harrogate Civic Society, and attended by members of the society, Mrs Fisher’s family, and women’s volunteer movement Soroptimist International, which had campaigned for the plaque to be installed.
The four-bedroom end-terrace house is now owned by Jo Bagley, who brought up her two children there after moving in 18 years ago. She said:
I was asked earlier in the year if I’d mind having the plaque on my gatepost, and I didn’t think twice. I love it. I think it looks wonderful, and it’s nice to exhibit some of the town’s history like this.
Cllr Aldred unveils the plaque.
The Charter Mayor of Harrogate, Cllr Chris Aldred, unveiling the plaque.
Mary Fisher was born in Kirby Hill, near Boroughbridge, in 1884 and married Frank Fisher in 1913. They had a butcher’s shop around the corner on Commercial Street, where Bek’s Electrical now stands.
She founded the Girl Guides movement in Harrogate, and supported numerous charitable causes, including the British Deaf Association, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and Soroptimist International.
She was also a Justice of the Peace and a Conservative councillor, sitting on the local unemployment assistance committee and, during the Second World War, the war savings committee and the local Ministry of Information committee.
She oversaw the hosting in Harrogate of 20 children from war-torn Austria, and with other councillors in 1946 she co-founded a care home on Cold Bath Road, which was until recently called Mary Fisher House.
She became Harrogate’s first female mayor in 1949 and first female Alderman in 1954, and was also made a Freeman of the Borough. She was made an MBE in 1958.
Speaking after yesterday’s unveiling, one of Mrs Fisher’s grandchildren, Anne Asquith, remembered living with her granny at 1 Mount Parade for six months, before the family moved to Ripon Road.
She told the Stray Ferret:
My granny was modest and hard-working, and always maintained that she was plain Mary Fisher. She wouldn’t have liked a song and dance made, but she would have been very proud that her contribution and efforts for Harrogate had been recognised in this way.
Mary Fisher's brown plaque is the 95th to be unveiled in Harrogate, and more are in the pipeline. The next one is expected to be for Claude Verity, one of the pioneers of sound synchronisation with silent films.
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