Friday 27 August 2021

Suffragette, Katharine Gatty

Katharine Gatty in Holloway Prison, c.1912

The extraordinary life of suffragette Katharine Gatty came to an end in the Loreto Convalescent Home, 167 Albert Road, Strathfield on 1 May 1952. Born in India in 1870, she grew up in Ireland with her mother’s family after her soldier father’s early death. She moved to London in her late teens and was just 18 when she began her career of civil disobedience, taking part in the Great Dock Strike of 1889. In a 1936 interview she claimed that her dedication to the cause of democracy had been inspired by the plight of Irish tenant farmers.

The WSPU in Kingsway, London c.1911
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Social_and_Political_Union#/media/File:WSPU_in_Kingsway.jpg

She became a prominent member of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in London before World War I. Founded in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst, the WSPU’ s motto was ‘deeds, not words’ in its campaign to gain the vote for women. True to the motto, Gatty was actively involved in smashing windows and once chained herself to the gates of Hyde Park.

The aftermath of a suffragette window-smashing spree outside Swan and Edgars department store in the West End of London. Courtesy Hulton Archive/Getty Images
https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-34474123

Imprisoned nine times, she embarked on several hunger strikes and was force-fed. For this she received the Hunger Strike Medal from the WSPU. At her trial in 1912, she was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment – although, as she testified, a man in Edinburgh received just two months for breaking his wife’s skull.

Imprisoned suffragettes waving through the barred windows of Holloway Prison, London.

Image courtesy Hulton Archive/Getty Images
https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-34474123

The Suffragette Newspaper 6 February 1914
https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/malignant-suffragette-remembering-emily-wilding-davison

The Suffragette Handkerchief, embroidered in Holloway Prison. Courtesy Wikipedia

Her signature is included with those embroidered on The Suffragette Handkerchief in Holloway Prison, London in March 1912. Her name appears in the left-hand column just below that of Fanny Pease. Today, the handkerchief is on display at The Priest House Museum in West Hoathly, West Sussex. Gatty was a close friend of fellow-suffragette, Emily Davison who was killed after being trampled on by the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby in 1913.

Emily Wilding Davison. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Emily_Davison_portrait.jpg

It was only with the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 that the WSPU ceased its agitation for suffrage, instead throwing its weight behind the war effort. Its members were among those who handed out white feathers to young men not in uniform. Katharine Gatty may have worked as a nurse during World War I.

In the United Kingdom, suffrage was given to women over 30 in 1918, with full franchise rights granted in 1928. Australian women aged 21 and over had been entitled to vote since 1902, while South Australian women were granted suffrage in 1894.

Katharine Gatty is thought to have had two daughters, including Eve, with her first husband, William Lewis Reid in 1893. However she left that marriage when her daughter was very young. A subsequent relationship produced another daughter, Janet, and Reid later divorced her for adultery. She married again in 1915, after her imprisonment, to Ernest Lucas Gillett and often took the surname Gillett-Gatty. This marriage was also unsuccessful and she later described herself as a widow.

In 1931 she joined the anti-fascist Women’s International Matteotti Committee, formed by feminist Sylvia Pankhurst. Gatty spoke French, German and Italian and travelled to Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany on fact-finding missions.

During the 1930s she lived in Greece and Spain before moving to California during the 1940s. In 1947 she came to Australia, first visiting Perth before travelling to Sydney and settling in Strathfield. On arriving in Australia she took up the cause of saving the kangaroo.

Her political aspirations continued too. In an article in The Sun on 3 May 1947, she demanded:

‘Where are all your women MPs and senators? I have nearly talked my head off since arriving here this week convincing women that they must vote for women candidates irrespective of the party they support.’

She also claimed that equal pay for men and women was the most burning question of the day. The 1949 electoral roll described her as a lecturer and journalist.

Sun 3 May 1947 p.3
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/231548071

Katharine Gatty was also a member of the Dawn Society, first established in San Francisco. This group pledged to donate their eyes for corneal transplants after death. When she died in 1952, having been bedridden with arthritis, she left the following instructions to her Australian executors:

‘About my own carcase; first, that both my eyes be enucleated if possible within eight hours of my demise so that two corneally blind persons may each receive one cornea… Next, I am to be cremated or buried at sea… But as the flower trade depends far more on funerals than on weddings, I would like it if such nice persons would buy and give some flowers (in my memory) to some old and sick person, not necessarily explaining to the recipient the reason why, as some people do not realise that death is far preferable to the horrors of eternity.’

It remains unclear whether these wishes were carried out.

Katharine Gatty is just one of the extraordinary, but largely unknown, people who have called Strathfield home.

by J.J. MacRitchie

Local Studies Advisor

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_dock_strike,_1889

https://www.dib.ie/biography/gatty-gillett-gatty-katherine-a10132

https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/overview/startsuffragette-/

https://womanandhersphere.com/2012/08/11/collecting-suffrage-the-hunger-strike-medal/

https://sussexpast.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Priest-House-suffragette-handkerchief.pdf

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Emily-Davison-Death-at-the-Derby/

https://www.dib.ie/biography/gatty-gillett-gatty-katherine-a10132