Wigan woman's amazing journey from a pit brow lass to a doctor

Sheila Ramsdale, councillor for the Douglas ward, has spent decades painstakingly piecing together the life and times of Mary Roll (nee Tomlinson), a pit brow lass born in Orrell, who later trained to be a doctor and moved to India to become a missionary in the 1930s.

With the help of Rita Fell, who for many years worked at the Wigan Archives and Local Studies, Coun Ramsdale’s book will allow history buffs to learn how Mary went from the pits to an Indian hospital.

The book consists of Mary’s diary entries, mixed with footnotes from Coun Ramsdale, as well as images and newspaper archives from the Museum of Wigan Life.

“I first came across the story of Mary Alice Thompson many years ago whilst doing some other research on Irish immigration in Wigan,” said Coun Ramsdale.

“What struck me as most remarkable was that she had started life working in a weaving shed in a cotton factory. She had then progressed to the pit brow and eventually qualified as a doctor, working as a missionary in a leper colony in Ikkadu in India.

“I was completely fascinated by her story. She had started life in a terraced house in Wigan from a very working class family.”

After doing some more research, Coun Ramsdale traced one of Mary’s cousins to Birkenhead, who then got in touch with Mary.

Coun Ramsdale soon received a letter in November 1987, in which a humble Mary expressed her desire not to receive any acclaim for her work.

“Looking back over my 88 years, I don’t consider that I am worthy of a biography,” Mary wrote.

Coun Ramsdale said: “Consequently, I put her story on the back burner and years later discovered her story once again. By the time I contacted her cousin again, I was told Mary had recently died, but had been living in a nursing home in Norfolk until 101 years of age.

“By this time, we both agreed that the story of Mary Tomlinson needed telling for a variety of reasons, not least the fact she was incredibly inspiring and had led such a remarkable life.”

Mary’s diaries span decades, documenting her birth in 1899 and early life in Orrell, before moving to Pemberton, and leaving school in 1912, on her 13th birthday, to start work in the reeling room at Eckersley Mill, before starting work at the Blundell’s Pit colliery in Pemberton during the First World War.

From there, the story of how Mary studied medicine, became a qualified doctor and moved to India in the 1930s is told in captivating first hand accounts, interwoven with background details which were painstakingly researched by Coun Ramsdale and Rita.

Coun Ramsdale even visited the hospital in Ikkadu where Mary worked more than half a century ago.

“I couldn’t believe I was actually going to see this place of work that Mary had described to me in her diaries in such great detail,” she said.

“Although she had died in 2000 when she was 101, I felt as if this was the last piece of the jigsaw I had put together on Mary Tomlinson, from her start in life as a young girl working on the pit brow in Pemberton, having a visitation from God one Saturday morning, to becoming a missionary doctor in a tiny village in a rural area of India.”

She added: “It was a very humbling experience to think that I was actually standing where Mary Tomlinson would have worked all these miles away from

Wigan.”

Mary married husband Reginald in 1941 and the couple eventually moved back to the UK. He died in 1980, aged 87.

Mary died in September 2000, she was 101.

The book on her life can be purchased from the Museum of Wigan Life, in Library Street. Copies cost £7.50