Katharine Gatty

Katharine Gatty later Katherine Gillett-Gatty (11 June 1870 – 1 May 1952) was a British nurse, journalist, lecturer Emma Katharine Gatty was born in Ferozopur in Bengal in India in 1870 to Emma Rebecca née Collum (1844-1929) and Captain Edward Gatty (1837-1872) of the 39th (Dorsetshire) Regiment of Foot. By 1881 she and her widowed mother were living in Hammersmith in London. Her career as a Liberal started at age 18, when she took part in the Great Dock Strike of 1889. Gatty became a militant suffragette, on one occasion chaining herself to the gates at Hyde Park. In November 1911 Gatty was sentenced to three weeks imprisonment in Holloway Prison after taking part in a campaign of window smashing after the government 'torpedoed' the anticipated Conciliation Bill which was seen as a progressive step towards achieving women's suffrage.

In January 1912 she was again arrested while causing a disturbance when women had been excluded from the trial of Emily Davison, but this time she was released without charge. Gatty was a close friend of fellow-suffragette Davison (in May 1913 Gatty invited Davison for tea) who was killed when she ran in front of the horse of King Edward VII at the 1913 Derby. In prison in April 1912 Gatty again went on hunger strike which "lasted from dinner time on Sat. 13 till breakfast time on Friday 19 inclusive (6 days). Doctors began F.f. on the Wed. and they tried to feed me on Thursday 3 times but failed." In June of the same year she again went on hunger strike and was force-fed 13 times. On her release from prison in August 1911 she was immediately rearrested for smashing a window at the post office in Abergavenny in Wales, stating that she had done so to protest against the exclusion of women from such official lists as the electoral register. On this occasion Gatty received one month in prison with hard labour which had a serious effect on her health. In total she was imprisoned nine times for her activities on behalf of women's suffrage and the movement to abolish capital punishment. Gatty was an active member of the International Coordination Committee for Aid to Republican Spain, and was one of the organisers of the Co-operative Party in England in addition to being a lifelong advocate of Irish Home Rule. Gatty was still on the Nursing Register in 1934.

In January 1893 in St Mary’s church in Islington she married William Lewis Reid (1858–1923) In 1915 she married Ernest Lucas Gillett (1882-1954), a clerk in the Civil Service. The couple adopted the surname Gillett-Gatty.

Later life In September 1934 Gatty, representing Action Feministe Internationale, attended a conference on 'Ethiopia and Justice' organised by Sylvia Pankhurst at the Central Hall, Westminster. In the mid-1930s she lived for a period in Greece. In 1937 Gatty, describing herself an author "writing a book" and a widow despite the fact her husband was still alive, In 1938 the "humorous, witty Irishwoman, Mrs. Gillett-Gatty" spoke at a meeting of the American Student Union at Stanford University in California on "Fascism in Italy and Its Threat to the Democratic Ideal" in which she related her own experiences in Italy before and after Mussolini's rise to power.

The Archive of the Women's Library at the London School of Economics holds twelve of her letters sent from prison.