Nurse

46

Single

9 Pembridge Gardens, London.

WSPU

Resists

Born in Maidstone, Catherine Emily Pine trained as a nurse at St Bartholomew’s Hospital between 1895-1897. She was described glowingly during training as ‘punctual, very kind and attentive, very patient and even tempered’ with Ward Sisters recording that she would make ‘a very good nurse’. She remained at St Bart’s working as a hospital Sister from 1900 until 1907.
By 1908, Nurse Pine as she would become known, was running a nursing home in Notting Hill and was by then a member of the WSPU. She ran it with fellow WSPU and St. Bart’s trained nurse Gertrude Townend who was injured in a tussle with police in 1913 at Bow Baths Hall. In 1908, WSPU leader Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst’s son Harry who was frequently ill, was taken there for treatment as were other WSPU and sometimes family members. Sadly, Mrs Pankhurst's son Harry died there when he was readmitted two years later in 1910. The nursing home, situated by 1909 at 9 Pembridge Gardens, was used by suffragettes recovering from imprisonment, especially after the infamous ‘Cat and Mouse Act’ was passed in 1913 (see our Suffrage Glossary in Resources). In that year, Mrs Pankhurst was released from prison after hunger striking, and Nurse Pine became her devoted carer. However, due to press intrusion and constant police presence at the nursing home, Mrs Pankhurst was moved and cared for instead by Nurse Pine, at several different WSPU member homes (see images). When the government census survey was taken in April 1911, Nurse Pine ‘resisted’. She gave her patient details under protest, as well as her own name, but wrote across her census form in both black and red ink: ‘Above names at request. For the rest No Votes No Information’ (see images). In 1915, WSPU leader Mrs Pankhurst set up a hostel to care for ‘illegitimate’ war babies and by 1917, this was situated at 50 Clarendon Road, London. Nurse Pine took joint charge there later joining Mrs Pankhurst in America in 1920. The two then relocated to Canada along with three of the adopted ‘war babies’. However, in 1923 Nurse Pine returned to England when the dynamics of her relationship with Mrs Pankhurst altered with the arrival of her daughter Christabel and her adopted daughter. Nurse Pine never saw Mrs Pankhurst again, but the two kept in touch by letter. When Mrs Pankhurst died, Nurse Pine was at her funeral. Much of Nurse Pine’s suffrage memorabilia is now with the Museum of London. Key source: Elizabeth Crawford, The Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide, 1866-1928 (London, 1999).