Dorothy Wyndlow Pattison, better known as Sister Dora (16 January 1832 – 24 December 1878), was an Anglican nun and nurse who worked in Walsall, Staffordshire.

Life

Dorothy Wyndlow Pattison was born in Hauxwell, North Riding of Yorkshire, the eleventh of the twelve children of the rector, Reverend Mark James Pattison (1788-1865) and his wife, Jane (1793-1860) Pattison. One of her siblings was the scholar Mark Pattison. Her childhood was overshadowed by the illness of her domineering father. Only his sons received an education but Dorothy was taught by her brother Mark. In 1856, she became secretly engaged to James Tate, the son of James Tate, headmaster of Richmond School. The Tates were one of the few families with whom the Pattisons had social contact. At the same time she also developed feelings for another man, Purchas Stirke. After her mother's death in 1860, she broke off her relationships with both men. She was able to leave home due to a £90 bequest from her mother. From 1861 to 1864, she ran the village school at Little Woolstone, Buckinghamshire. In late 1864, she joined the Christ Church sisterhood (known as "Good Samaritans" and which became the Community of the Holy Rood ) at Coatham, near Redcar, North Yorkshire. She adopted the name of Sister Dora. In 1865, she was sent to Walsall to work as a relief nurse in a small cottage hospital and would devote the remainder of her life to nursing. She was sent by the sisterhood to work at the hospital in Bridge Street and arrived in Walsall on 8 January 1865. The rest of her life was spent in Walsall. She worked at the Cottage Hospital at The Mount until 1875, when Walsall was hit by smallpox. She worked for six months at an epidemic infirmary set up in Deadman's Lane (now Hospital Street), treating thousands of patients. During the last two years of her life, she worked at the hospital in Bridgeman Street, overlooking the South Staffordshire Railway (later the London and North Western Railway). She developed a special bond of friendship with railway workers who often suffered in industrial accidents. In 1871, these labourers gave her a pony and a carriage, and even raised the sum of £50 from their own wages, to enable her to visit housebound patients more easily. Sister Dora trained nurses at Walsall, among them Louisa McLaughlin. One of people she influenced was the orphan Kate Hill who was impressed by the calm way Sister Dora cared for miners. Hill emigrated with her sister to Australia in 1879; she opened her own hospital in Adelaide and started a branch of the Australasian Trained Nurses' Association.

Death and legacy

In 1877, Sister Dora was diagnosed with breast cancer. She died on Christmas Eve 1878, aged 46. At her funeral on 28 December, the town of Walsall turned out to see her off to Queen Street Cemetery, borne by eighteen railwaymen, engine drivers, porters and guards.

Legacy

Sources