Walsall remembers nursing heroine Sister Dora at annual ceremony
Residents and civic guests took part in the annual thanksgiving service to mark the life and times of Walsall's nursing heroine Sister Dora.
The service was held at the Crossing at St Paul's in the town centre where she worshipped followed by the congregation undertaking a short walk to her memorial statue on The Bridge nearby.
St Paul's Church lay minister Anita Edwards says: "She knew from the age of six that she wanted to be a nurse, but wasn't sure how she'd achieved that. Her father was very controlling and wouldn't let her leave home.
"When her mother died she left her a bequest of £90 which enabled her to first become a teacher, then she became a nun and through becoming a nun, she joined an order which did work including nursing. In about 1865 she was asked to come to Walsall as a relief nurse in what was known as the accident hospital, working mainly with men who suffered terrible industrial injuries.
"Together with other people in the town she created a new cottage hospital to treat the people of Walsall. She did home visits which was remarkably new, she worked through two smallpox epidemics, the Pelsall mining disaster and the blast furnace disaster in Green Lane.
"She devoted the rest of her very short life, she died at 46 from breast cancer, to the people of Walsall and their health."
Sister Dora never married despite a number of courtships.
"She saw that as a woman in the 19th century that if she were to marry she'd have to give up her work and her ministry, because it was rooted in her faith in God she wasn't willing to do that."
Sister Dora or Dorothy Wyndlow Pattison was born in Yorkshire.
When she died in 1878 thousands lined Bridge Street in the town centre to pay their respects. She was buried in the town's Queen Street Cemetery off Rolling Mill Street where residents still leave flowers at her grave as a mark of respect of how special she was to the town in her day.
The original marble statute to honour her was paid for by public subscription and when it was unveiled in 1886 thousands again packed the town centre. It was the first statue of a female who was not a member of the Royal Family. That monument was damaged by pollution and it was replaced in 1957.
Every year St Paul's, in Darwall Street, in partnership with Walsall Council hosts a commemoration service to remember her followed by a wreath-laying ceremony at the statue on The Bridge which features panels depicting incidents including the colliery and the furnace tragedies. A white plaster cast model of the statue is displayed in Walsall Manor Hospital's family diagnostic centre.
