Bina Cursiter
Born
Jacobina Watt

Edinburgh, Scotland
Baptised15 November 1854 (1854-11-15)
Died24 November 1934 (1934-11-25) (aged 80)
Edinburgh, Scotland
Resting placeDean Cemetery
OccupationSuffragist
OrganizationOrcadian Women's Suffrage Society
RelativesStanley 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]

Life

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]

Death and legacy

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]

References

  1. ↑ "Scotland Monumental Inscriptions". www.findmypast.co.uk. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 Dusty (10 March 2018). "Orkney Archive - get dusty: A Suffrage Search". Orkney Archive - get dusty. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 Crawford, Elizabeth (1999). The women's suffrage movement : a reference guide, 1866-1928. London: UCL Press. ISBN 0-203-03109-1. OCLC 53836882.
  4. ↑ "List of Societies in the National Union". Common Cause. 19 May 1910. p. 95.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Gibbon, Lucy (2018). "Bina Cursiter, an Orkney Suffragette" (PDF). Orkney Heritage Society. 50th Anniversary Issue.
  6. 1 2 "Passing of a notable Orcadian antiquary". Orkney Herald. 23 August 1939.
  7. ↑ Leneman, Leah (1995). A guid cause: the women's suffrage movement in Scotland. Edinburgh: Mercat Press. ISBN 1-873644-48-5. OCLC 34146764.
  8. 1 2 "Deaths". The Scotsman. 27 November 1934.
  9. ↑ theorkneynews (11 December 2021). "Sanday School Learns About Orcadian Women's Suffrage". The Orkney News. Retrieved 23 April 2022.
  10. ↑ "Protests & Suffragettes". Protests & Suffragettes. Retrieved 23 April 2022.
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