Kate Isitt (journalist)

Kate Isitt
Born
Kate Evelyn Isitt

(1876-07-20)20 July 1876
New Plymouth, New Zealand
Died24 January 1948(1948-01-24) (aged 71)
London, England
Occupation(s)Novelist and journalist
RelativesFrank Isitt (father)
Leonard Isitt (uncle)

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, on 20 July 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][3]

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.[4] 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

  1. ^ a b c d Robinson, Roger, ed. (1998). The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature. Auckland: Oxford University Press. p. 260. ISBN 0-19-558348-5.
  2. ^ a b c d "Touchstone" (PDF). Methodist Publishing Company. May 2016. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
  3. ^ "Births". Taranaki Herald. Vol. XXIV, no. 2430. 22 July 1876. p. 2. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  4. ^ Moffat, Kirstine (8 June 2012). "Edith Searle Grossmann, 1863–1931". Kōtare: New Zealand Notes & Queries. 7. doi:10.26686/knznq.v7i1.772. Retrieved 28 April 2016.