Catherine Osler or Catherine Courtauld Osler; Catherine Courtauld Taylor (26 February 1854 – 16 December 1924) was a British social reformer and suffragist.

Biography

Osler was born in

Bridgwater Bridgwater is a historic market town and civil parish in Somerset, England. The town had a population of 41,276 at the 2021 census. Bridgwater is at the edge of the Somerset Levels, in level and well-wooded country. The town lies along both sid ...

in 1854 to William and Catherine Taylor. Her Unitarian parents were members of the Birmingham Women's Suffrage Society from its formation. Catherine was their eldest child and she rose through the ranks of the society as she went from treasurer to secretary in 1885. She married Alfred Osler who ran the family firm of F & C Osler of Birmingham, a firm famous for the design and manufacture of fine crystal, exemplified by magnificent pieces such as chandeliers to be found in grand buildings in many parts of the world. Alfred Osler was a member of the Liberal Party. In 1888 the Women's Liberal Federation had a conference in Birmingham and Catherine Osler was asked to preside over it. Four years later the Women's Emancipation Union met in Birmingham and Osler was invited to chair a session where she shared her ambition to get women involved in local government. In 1903, she became the President of the Birmingham Women's Suffrage Society. Osler was opposed to the actions of the militant suffragettes and she had written to criticise the actions of the

Women's Social and Political Union The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom founded in 1903. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and p ...

. However she did not approve of the way the WSPU militants were treated in prison. In 1909, she resigned as President of the Birmingham Women's Liberal Association citing her objection to the Liberal government's policy of force feeding suffragette prisoners. In 1911, Osler joined the executive committee of the

National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies The National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), also known as the ''suffragists'' (not to be confused with the suffragettes) was an organisation founded in 1897 of women's suffrage societies around the United Kingdom. In March 1919 it w ...

(NUWSS). Osler was also active in Birmingham trying to establish a role for women in local government. In 1919, Osler was given a master's degree by

Birmingham University The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

for her work in support of the social standing of her gender. Osler died in

Edgbaston Edgbaston () is a suburb of Birmingham, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It lies immediately south-west of Birmingham city centre, and was historically in Warwickshire. The Ward (electoral subdivision), wards of Edgbaston and Nort ...

in 1924. A portrait of her by local artist Edward Harper was commissioned and is now in a local gallery. Crawford, Elizabeth. ‘Osler , Catherine Courtauld (1854–1924)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 201
accessed 20 November 2017
/ref> Her name and picture (and those of 58 other women's suffrage supporters) are on the

plinth A pedestal or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In civil engineering, it is also called ''basement''. The minimum height o ...

of the

statue of Millicent Fawcett The statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London, honours the British suffragist leader and social campaigner Dame Millicent Fawcett. It was made in 2018 by Gillian Wearing. Following a campaign and petition by the activist Caroli ...

Parliament Square Parliament Square is a square at the northwest end of the Palace of Westminster in the City of Westminster in central London, England. Laid out in the 19th century, it features a large open green area in the centre with trees to its west, and ...

, London, unveiled in 2018.

Works

* ''Why Women Need the Vote'', 1910

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Osler, Catherine 1854 births 1924 deaths People from Bridgwater British social reformers British suffragists