Catharine Dowman probably won’t be a name you’re familiar with, unless, of course you’re an ardent fan of early twentieth-century British Maritime History. In fact, even if you are, and even if you have visited Royal Museums Greenwich’s Cutty Sark, you still might not know who she is, which is a tragedy. So here is a long overdue article about this Suffragist who gave London one of it’s most famous maritime landmarks.
(A note from Abby: if you’re not really bothered about maritime history don’t click off, I’m not going to start giving you ship facts, this is about Catharine.)
Glossary:
Deed poll - A legal document that must be filed to change your name in the UK
Cutty Sark – Old Scots for ‘short skirt’ or ‘short petticoat’, the name of the ship comes from a Robert Burns poem ‘Tam o’Shanter’, a young witch ‘Nannie’ chases Tam, a drunk farmer after he catcalls her for her ‘Cutty Sark’ and she pulls off his horse’s tail! She’s the figurehead of the ship!
Suffrage/Suffragette/Suffragist – protestors and activists for women’s right to vote. broadly speaking, Suffragettes were militant protesters and Suffragists were peaceful, though lines were often blurred.
Barquentine – This is a type of sailing ship and simply means she had fewer sails than others, allowing for a much smaller crew but also slower travel.
Brigantine – This is a smaller sailing vessel with two masts of different heights, this term is often shortened to ‘brig’
The Courtaulds and Public Service
Catharine Courtauld (yes, that Courtauld) was born on the 25th May 1878, as the daughter of a wealthy textile family Catharine had an extensive education and a privileged upbringing. Contrary to any preconceptions you may have, the Courtaulds were unilaterally supportive of social reform, suffrage, and public causes; the family had a long history of funding hospitals, educational trusts, and charitable funds. Furthermore, prior to Catharine’s own birth, in 1866, two members of the family signed the first mass suffrage petition to Parliament! Catharine’s brothers Stephen and Samuel restored Eltham Palace (now an English Heritage site), and founded the Courtauld Institute of Art respectively. Their cousin, Katharina Mina Courtauld, ‘Min’, was a committed Suffragist who contributed to the 1911 Census Protests. Min’s half-sister, Elizabeth Courtauld, qualified as a doctor in 1901 and during WWI worked as an anaesthetist in a hospital 30km north of Paris. Catharine and her sister Sydney Renée were involved in the Mid Bucks Suffrage society, often hosting Garden Parties at their home in Frith Hill to fundraise for the cause, also selling art and sculptures for the effort. Moreover, Catherine was a founding member of the Artists’ Suffrage League and the Suffrage Atelier. Founding the League In 1907,and the Atelier in 1909, both organisations contributed artistic work to protests and propaganda efforts of the various Suffrage movements. Catharine’s work for the Suffrage Atelier were widely distributed in the form of postcards, and their typically witty nature made them popular and easily recognisable. (You can check out more of Catharine’s art and others in the Museum of London Collection!)
Like other British Suffragettes and Suffragists, Catharine neglected activism during the outbreak of WWI to support the war effort. In 1918 (some) women in the UK were enfranchised, under the Representation of the People act. Specifically, women over the age of 30 who owned property, which included Catharine Dowman, although not the majority of the female population.
Love and Scandal
In 1912, Catharine met Mate Wilfred Dowman on board the Port Jackson, a Cadet Training Ship en route from London to Sydney, Australia. Scandalously, the married Dowman and Catharine fell in love. The couple would live together, unmarried(!) for several years, until Catharine changed her name by deed poll from Courtauld to Dowman in 1918. Unsurprisingly, this act was the final straw for Wilfred Dowman’s estranged wife Nellie and shortly afterwards she filed for divorce. Catharine and Wilfred were married in 1920. (Hurray for them?)
Maritime Saviour
The Cutty Sark, a former Tea Clipper and Merchant Navy ship, was spotted by Wilfred Dowman in Falmouth, Cornwall. Dowman recognised the ship as the one that overtook the ship which he had been an apprentice on in 1895. Cutty Sark had since been sold to the Portuguese, renamed the Ferreira and rerigged as a barquentine after a devastating storm. Dowman paid over the odds to have her returned to British ownership. An oft overlooked fact is that Catharine almost entirely footed the £3750 bill! (Approximately £108,700*)
The Dowmans sold off other vessels that they already owned, including a brigantine called the Lady of Avenal, to buy Cutty Sark. They spent several years and a sizeable chunk of their finances to restore the ship to its former glory days as a sailing vessel. It made a public debut as the flagship of the Fowey Regatta in 1924, and for 16 years after this, she was moored in Falmouth as a training vessel for cadets.
After Wilfred Dowman’s death in 1936, Catharine ‘sold’ the ship (for 10 shillings!) and donated £5000 (approximately £253,313*) for its upkeep to the Thames Nautical Training College. She was towed to Greenhithe, a village in Kent, where she served as an auxiliary vessel to HMS Worcester until 1950. After receiving considerable damage in January 1952, she was given to the Cutty Sark Preservation Society, and in 1954, moved to a custom-built dry dock in Greenwich where she remains. Despite a fire in 2007, 90% of the original ship materials remain intact! She is now a Grade 1 listed monument, open as a paid-entry museum as part of Royal Museums Greenwich. Her preservation is all thanks to Catharine Dowman’s generosity.
If you want to learn more about Cutty Sark, Catharine, and Wilfred Dowman (and maybe even spot The HERstory Project’s founder in the flesh!) take a visit to Greenwich and the ship. If you’re lucky, Abby might even tell you about another Catherine’s influence on the British Tea Trade!
*Currency conversions are completed by the National Archives Currency Calculator and only converts up to 2017 and does not take into account recent inflation, exact figures for 2023 would be much higher!
Further reading:
‘Catharine Dowman’, Royal Museums Greenwich, (06/03/2018), https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/blog/catharine-dowman-preservation-cutty-sark
‘Catharine and Sydney Renee Courtauld’, Amersham Museum, https://amershammuseum.org/history/women-at-war/catharine-and-sydney-renee-courtauld/
Batchelor, Linda, ‘Saving Cutty Sark – The Legacy of Wilfred and Catharine Dowman’, National Maritime Museum, https://nmmc.co.uk/2023/06/saving-cutty-sark-the-legacy-of-wilfred-and-catharine-dowman/
‘The Suffragettes’, Museum of London, https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/suffragettes
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