1. Mary Raleigh Richardson was a Canadian suffragette active in the women's suffrage movement in the United Kingdom, an arsonist, a socialist parliamentary candidate and later head of the women's section of the British Union of Fascists led by Sir Oswald Mosley.
Mary Richardson lived in Bloomsbury, London, England, and witnessed Black Friday in London in 1910.
Mary Richardson was a devoted supporter of Pankhurst and a member of the WSPU.
Mary Richardson joined Helen Craggs at the Women's Press shop and told her of the abuse from men and customers tearing up materials.
Mary Richardson claimed to be at the Epsom races on Derby Day, 4 June 1913, when Emily Davison jumped in front of the King's horse.
Emily Davison died in Epsom Cottage Hospital; Mary Richardson was reportedly chased and beaten by an angry mob but was given refuge in Epsom Downs station by a railway porter.
Mary Richardson committed a number of acts of arson, smashed windows at the Home Office and bombed a railway station.
Mary Richardson was arrested nine times, receiving prison terms totalling more than three years.
Mary Richardson was one of the first two women force-fed for hunger-striking, then released to recover and be re-arrested under the 1913 Cat and Mouse Act, Prisoners Act 1913, serving her sentences in HM Prison Holloway.
Mary Richardson was given the Hunger Strike Medal 'for Valour' by WSPU, and was proud of being awarded more bars for strikes than anyone else.
Mary Richardson was devoted to Dove-Willcox and wrote the poem The Translation of the Love I Bear Lillian Dove.
On 10 March 1914 Mary Richardson entered the National Gallery in London to attack a painting by Velazquez, the Rokeby Venus, using a chopper she smuggled into the gallery.
Mary Richardson wrote a brief statement explaining her actions to the WSPU which was published by the press:.
In 1932, after forming the belief that fascism was the "only path to a 'Greater Britain,'" Mary Richardson joined the British Union of Fascists, led by Sir Oswald Mosley.
Mary Richardson claimed that "I was first attracted to the Blackshirts because I saw in them the courage, the action, the loyalty, the gift of service and the ability to serve which I had known in the suffragette movement".
Mary Richardson rose quickly through the BUF ranks and by 1934 was Chief Organiser for the Women's Section of the party.
Mary Richardson left within two years after becoming disillusioned with the sincerity of its policy on women.
Mary Richardson died at her flat in Hastings on 7 November 1961.