Mary Barnardiston (1865-1964) came from a family of ‘landed gentry’ which could trace its line back to the Conquest. She was one of eleven children of Colonel Nathaniel Barnardiston (1832-1916) and his wife Lady Florence Legge (c.1839-1917), daughter of the 4th Earl of Dartmouth.
Born at the family seat, The Ryes, Little Henny, near Sudbury, Mary moved to Bury in the mid-1920s. She was described in the local press as a ‘keen St John’s parishioner and enthusiastic member of the Women’s Legion’. She died in Surrey at the age of 99 in 1964.
One of her brothers, Major-General Nathaniel Walter Barnardiston (1858-1919), had a distinguished career in the Army. Her father, Col Barnardiston, was the First Chairman of West Suffolk County Council.