Bina Cursiter | |
---|---|
Born | Jacobina Watt
Edinburgh, Scotland |
Baptised | 15 November 1854 |
Died | 24 November 1934 Edinburgh, Scotland | (aged 80)
Resting place | Dean Cemetery |
Occupation | Suffragist |
Organization | Orcadian Women's Suffrage Society |
Relatives | Stanley Cursiter (nephew) |
Bina Cursiter (15 November 1854 – 24 November 1934) [1] was a Scottish suffragist, who played a leading role in Orcadian Women's Suffrage Society, [2] [3] [4] and helped to galvanise the organised women's movement in Orkney. [5]
Bina Cursiter was born Jacobina Watt in Edinburgh on 15 November 1854, the daughter of Philip Butler and Elizabeth Watt (née Patterson). [5] She was educated in Surrey and Nottingham before being recommended, aged 18, to work as a governess in Hungary. [5] Bina subsequently spent three years employed by Count Lajos Benyovszky, caring for his daughter Marietta. [5]
The Watt family returned to Scotland in the 1880s, settling in Glasgow. [5] In 1885, while visiting Kirkwall, Orkney, she met James Walls Cursiter, who she married in Glasgow on 29 June 1892 at the age of 37. [5] [6] James Cursiter was a grocer and general merchant, as well as an archaeologist and antiquarian. [5] [6] The couple's daughter, Lizzie Watt, was born in 1893. [5]
The meeting to form the Orcadian Women's Suffrage Society (OWSS) was held in the Cursiters' home in Kirkwall, Daisybank, on 25 September 1909. [2] [5] Bina Cursiter became its Honorary Secretary. [2] [3] Its President was Mary Anne Baikie. [7] The OWSS, who by the end of their first year had 55 members, [5] was non-militant, and Cursiter devoted much of her time to its methods - including writing to the press, staging debates, and speaking at meetings. [5] At the group's 1913 AGM, Cursiter's 'arduous and self-sacrificing services in the Cause' were noted. [5]
When Cursiter moved to Edinburgh in 1916, then aged 61, [5] she was presented with a gold watch in appreciation of her service to the Orcadian Women's Suffrage Society. [3] Once in Edinburgh, she became a member of the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service, and supported the Elsie Inglis hospitals for women and children. [5]
Bina Cursiter died in an Edinburgh nursing home aged 80, on 24 November 1934. [8] She was buried in Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh. [8]
In 2021, Bina Cursiter was featured on a pack of 'Scotland's Suffragette Trumps’ playing cards, which were sent to 100 Scottish schools by the group Protests and Suffragettes. [9] [10]