Mary Richmond may have lived in Australia around the years 1897 to 1899, when her poem 'Sydney Harbour (New Year's Eve, 1897)', and a series of poems about Australia published in Poems (1903) were written. Richmond was the daughter of Appeal Court judge and one-time acting Premier of New Zealand, C. W. Richmond. From 1884 until 1890 she was a teacher at Wellington Girl's High School, New Zealand.
Richmond was an acclaimed preacher and public speaker. Six of her poems, relating to New Zealand, appear in New Zealand Verse (collected by W. F. Alexander and A. E. Currie, 1906). She also published selected works of her New Zealand poetry, Roundels, Sonnets, and Other Verses (1898), and Yet We Believe : Thoughts in Peace and War 1938-1943 (1943). Her 1924 selected work of children's poetry, The Bindy Ballads, contains poems with mostly English settings, and none reflect the time she spent in Australia. Her poetry was mostly circulated privately. The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature (Robinson and Wattie, 1998) mentions the works Betty B.'s Book (1907), Songs for Children (1924) and Arisaig Idyll (1943). Many of her poems were never published, and are held along with other material in the Richmond-Atkinson archive in the Alexander Turnbull Library (New Zealand). Sister of Anna Wilson Richmond.
