Mary Fisher (mayor)

Mary Fisher MBE JP (née Stott; 6 June 1884 – 28 February 1972) was an English charity worker and politician. She was a Conservative councillor, and justice of the peace who became the first woman mayor of Harrogate, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England, and devoted 60 years of her life to public service.

Fisher introduced the Girl Guides movement to Harrogate, and involved herself with education, hospital visiting and the poor. She gave her support to the work of Soroptimist International, the British Deaf Association and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). She was a justice of the peace and a Conservative councillor. Along with other councillors she co-founded a care home which was named after her. Her committee duties included 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 twenty distressed children from war-torn Austria, and was interviewed by Richard Dimbleby in the Down Your Way radio programme.

Although referred to in a patronising manner by a group of journalists, Fisher oversaw the successful move of the Great Yorkshire Show to a permanent venue in Harrogate. She presided over Yorkshire's first arena stage production at the Royal Hall, Harrogate. In recognition of her public service work, she was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1958 Birthday Honours. She was made an honorary freeman of the borough of Harrogate, and was elected to the Roll of Honorary Aldermen of Harrogate. In 2025 a brown plaque was erected in Harrogate to commemorate Fisher's work.