Mary Rough was born on 15 February 1875 in Kilbarchan, Renfrewshire, Scotland, the daughter of a carpet weaver.
Mary Barbour (née Rough) was born on 15 February 1875 in the village of Kilbarchan, Renfrewshire, Scotland. She was one of seven children born to James Rough, a carpet weaver, and Jane Gavin.
Her upbringing in a working-class weaving community instilled in her early exposure to the conditions of industrial labour and the precariousness of tenant life, experiences that would later inform her activism in Glasgow. She trained and worked as a carpet printer before her marriage.
Though this early period of her life was relatively modest and undocumented in detail, it laid the foundations for the strong sense of community solidarity and practical organisational skill she would later demonstrate as a leader of the Glasgow Rent Strikes and as a pioneering local politician. Her working-class roots remained central to her identity and motivated her lifelong commitment to the welfare of ordinary tenants, mothers, and children.
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