Born: 1823, Ireland
Died: 6 January 1863
Country most active: Ireland
Also known as: NA
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Frances Clarke. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Burns, Mary (1823–63), mill hand and social radical, was born in Ireland, daughter of an Irish dyer who emigrated to Manchester. Shortly afterwards (1842), while employed there at the Victoria Mills of Ermen & Engels, she first met and fell in love with the socialist Friedrich Engels while he was on his first visit to the city. She introduced him to the slums of Manchester, in particular ‘Little Ireland’ to the south of the city, thus giving him a first-hand knowledge of working-class living conditions. Together they also attended workers’ mass meetings in the Hall of Sciences. Engels left Manchester in 1844, returned in the summer of 1845 and revisited Burns, and subsequently took her to live with him on the Continent, where they continued to attend political meetings. The unofficial nature of their liaison attracted comment: Karl Marx and, particularly, his wife Jenny appear to have disapproved of Engels’s relations with her. Back in Manchester (1850) they settled down together in a terraced house in Ardwick, on the outskirts of the city, separate from Engels’s private apartments. Her niece Mary Ellen Burns (known as ‘Pumps’) and sister Lydia (‘Lizzie’) Burns also lived with them. Credited with some responsibility for the interest Engels took in Irish affairs, she made a tour of Ireland (1856) with her common-law husband. After her sudden death (6 January 1863) Engels wrote to Marx: ‘I feel I have buried with her all that was left of my youth.’ Marx may not have appreciated the strength of the attachment, and his indifferent response greatly offended Engels.