Mary Brooksbank, Dundee's celebrated mill-worker poet and socialist activist, died on 16 March 1978.
Mary Brooksbank died on 16 March 1978, bringing to a close a long life dedicated to labor activism, socialist politics, and the preservation of working-class culture through song and verse. By the time of her death, she had become an iconic figure in Dundee's social history, remembered as both a fierce political campaigner and a gifted folk poet who gave voice to the experiences of jute mill workers, particularly women, who toiled under harsh conditions for meagre wages.
Her death marked the end of an era for Dundee's radical political tradition, one in which she had been an active participant from her teenage years, marching for fair wages and later engaging in trade union organizing and socialist and communist political activity. Her songs, including works that captured the hardship and resilience of mill workers, continued to be sung and remembered long after her passing, ensuring her legacy endured within Scottish folk music and labor history circles.
In the decades following her death, Brooksbank has been commemorated through Dundee's Women's Trail, various cultural and educational tributes, and continued interest in her poetry and songs among folk musicians and labor historians. Her life story remains a testament to the struggles and resilience of working-class women in early twentieth-century industrial Scotland, and her death date is well documented across biographical and historical sources.