Kate Isitt (journalist)

Kate Evelyn Isitt (20 July 1876 – 24 January 1948) was a New Zealand journalist and writer.

Biography[]

Isitt was born in New Plymouth, New Zealand, in 1876, to Francis Whitmore Isitt and Mary Campbell Isitt (née Purdie).^[1][2] Her father was a Wesleyan minister and the family moved around the country for a number of years. She completed her secondary schooling at Nelson College for Girls in 1891.^[2]

She worked for her uncle, Member of Parliament and leader of the prohibition movement Leonard Isitt, in Wellington in the early 1900s as his private secretary. Isitt later wrote a novel based on the development of the Prohibition movement, Patmos, which was published in 1905 under the pseudonym Kathleen Inglewood.^[1]

From 1907 to 1910 Isitt was a reporter for the Wellington newspaper The Dominion and its first women's page editor. Under the name "Dominica" she wrote a regular feature titled "Women's World – Matters of Interest from Far and Near".^[2] She also founded the Wellington Pioneer Club for women.^[1]

In 1910 Isitt travelled to England and came into contact with other expatriate writers such as Dora Wilcox and Edith Searle Grossmann.^[3] She continued to work as a journalist as London correspondent for the Manchester Guardian newspaper.^[1] She wrote for the newspaper until her retirement in 1944.

Isitt died in Kensington, London, in 1948.^[2]

References[]