Mary
Higgs, the daughter of a Congregational
minister, was born in Devizes, Wiltshire, in 1854. When Mary was a
child, her father became minister of the College Chapel in Bradford.
Mary obtained a place at Girton College,
an educational institution founded by Emily
Davies and Barbara Bodichon in 1870.
Mary was the first woman at the university to study for the
Natural Science Tripos.
After attending Cambridge University
Higgs returned to Bradford where she
became a school teacher. This ended in 1879 when she married a Congregational
minister based in Oldham. Mary Higgs became
involved in a wide range of religious and philanthropic organisations.
This included Secretary of the Oldham
Workhouse Ladies Visiting Committee and the organiser of a home for
destitute women.
Higgs became concerned about the scale of poverty she saw and carried
out a study of the lives of homeless people in Oldham.
The report Three Nights in Women's
Lodging Houses was published in 1906.
The following year she published Glimpses
Into the Abyss.
Mary Higgs
devoted the rest of her life to social work in Oldham
and was awarded an OBE just before her death in 1937.
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