Mary Taft (née Barritt; 12 August 1772 – 26 March 1851) was a British Wesleyan Methodist preacher.

Joseph Benson, President of the Methodist Conference, was a vocal critic of women preachers and he spoke out against her work advising that circuits should not ask her to speak.

George Sykes reported that he was unsure of the number of converts in Grimsby as there were 530 when he left but he knew it would be more now as Mary Tate was there.

It was in that year of 1802 that she married Zechariah Taft who was a fellow itinerant preacher and a vocal supporter of women ministers.

[2] In 1799 she said that one day "the wonder will then be that the exertions of pious females to bring souls to Christ should ever have been opposed or obstructed.

But if any woman among us think she has an extraordinary call from God to speak in public, (and we are sure it must be an extraordinary call that can authorize it,) we are of the opinion she should in general, address her own sex and those only: And upon this condition alone..."[1] Zechariah was at the conference and he would in time publish works in support of women preachers including Biographical Sketches of the Lives and Public Ministry of Various Holy Women in 1825-28.

Notably the Methodist Magazine did not give her a standard essay-sized obituary but made only a short summary of her death that ignored many of her achievements.

[3] Professor Deborah Valenze argues that the importance of her rebellion against discrimination created a focus for revision which had "universal significance".