#marybarton

Businesswoman Martha Lane Fox finds there’s something about Mary

"Mary Barton, by Elizabeth Gaskell flipped a switch in my mind forever."

Photograph by Alice Hawkins.

Articles written from interviews by Sophie Robinson, edited by Natalie Smith.

 “Books have an unimaginable power. They have power at an individual level and they have power at a collective level. I think that the ability for a person trapped in whatever situation, to unlock that situation through books and reading is just astonishing,” says Baroness Martha Lane Fox.

For Baroness Lane-Fox, whose 2004 car accident is well documented, this is something she’s experienced first hand.

“I couldn’t move for a very long time. I was in hospital for a long time. But one of the few things that would take me out of myself was when people read to me. I couldn’t hold a book, and when I could hold a book it was very exciting. It took a long time, but I did have people read to me,” she says.

“Even now, getting out of pain or getting out of frustration, there is no better place to go than to a book.”

“At an individual level, the conscience that is built through great literature is just remarkable. It’s a testament to our evolving humanity.”

One of the books that ‘took her out of herself’ quite early on in life was Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel Mary Barton. 

“It had a big impact on my life because I have always been interested in social change and social responsibility. I read it as a teenager, when I was really trying to figure out things like is selling stuff okay? What’s consumerism about? What’s industrialisation? What is a good person?”

 “This book is a complicated, incredible drama, set behind the scenes of a very working class Manchester town and against the backdrop of the industrialised city,” she explains.

It’s the story of a young woman, Mary Barton, who is shipped off to live with her aunt when her mother dies. 

“The book traces the ensuing sagas - the men she falls in love with and the things that happen in her family. There’s a murder – and she has to choose between the person that she knows is the murderer and the person she is in love with.”

“It broadened how I thought about things. It flipped that switch in my head. It made me think.”

“The most profound thing that I took from the book was about the way society is structured,” she explains.

“#THISBOOK flipped a switch in my mind forever.”

Mary Barton was a very strong figure in Baroness Lane-Fox’s mind: resilient, very tough, a real heroine, qualities she strove to emulate as a teenage girl.

“I like to think that I am a hardworking person, who cares about the impact they are having in the world and the wider community. So in that respect I would like to draw a parallel with Mary Barton.”

Martha Lane Fox, Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho CBE is a businesswoman, philanthropist and member of the House of Lords. Baroness Lane-Fox founded Lastminute.com and the karaoke company Lucky Voice. She chose Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell’s 1849 novel Mary Barton.