Dorothy Wyndlow Pattison was born in Hauxwell, Yorkshire, the eleventh of the twelve children of Rev Mark James Pattison and his wife, Jane. One of her siblings was the scholar Mark Pattison. Her childhood was overshadowed by the illness of her father, who had suffered a mental breakdown and became violent and domineering. In 1856, she became secretly engaged toa man called James Tate, the son of the headmaster of Richmond school. The Tates were one of the few families with whom the Pattisons had social contact. At the same time she also developed feelings for another man, Purchas Stirke. After her mother's death in 1860, she broke off her engagement with James. She thought she preferred Stirke, but broke away from him as well. She was able to leave home with a £90 bequest from her mother. From 1861–64, she ran the village school at Little Woolstone, Buckinghamshire. In the autumn of 1864, she joined the 'Christ Church sisterhood' at Coatham, Middlesbrough which became the Community of the Holy Rood. In 1866, as novice Sister Dora, she was sent to Walsall Cottage Hospital to work as a relief nurse and would devote the remainder of her life to nursing. She was sent to work at Walsall's hospital in Bridge Street and arrived in Walsall on 8 January 1865. The rest of her life was spent in Walsall. She worked at the Cottage Hospital at The Mount until 1875, when Walsall was hit by smallpox. She worked for six months at an epidemic infirmary set up in Deadman's Lane, treating thousands of patients. During the last two years of her life, she worked at the hospital in Bridgeman Street, overlooking the South Staffordshire Railway. She developed a special bond of friendship with railway workers who often suffered in industrial accidents. The railwaymen gave her a pony and a carriage and even raised the sum of £50 from their own wages to enable her to visit housebound patients more easily.
Death
In 1877 Sister Dora developed breast cancer. She decided against an operation and kept her disease a secret. She died on Christmas Eve 1878, aged 46. At her funeral on 28 December, the town of Walsall turned out to see her off to Queen Street Cemetery, borne by eighteen railwaymen, engine drivers, porters and guards, all in working uniform.
Legacy
The former Walsall General Hospital was renamed Walsall General Hospital. It has now been largely demolished in the rearrangement of the town's provision of health services, but Sister Dora's name is still perpetuated in the new hospitals. The provision for outpatients at Walsall Manor Hospital is named Sister Dora Outpatients Department. In Alumwell Close, Walsall, behind the Manor Hospital is a Mental Health Hospital which has been dedicated to Sister Dora. 'Dorothy Pattison Hospital' cares for Mental Health patients and belongs to the Dudley and Walsall Mental Health Partnership Trust.
In 1882, a stained glass window at St. Matthew's Church, Walsall, was dedicated to her.
In October 1886, a statue of Sister Dora by Francis John Williamson was unveiled in Walsall by a Mr. B Beebee. It is the UK's first public statue of a woman not of royal blood.
An annual church service is held in her memory in at St. Paul's Church at the Crossing in Walsall.
Probably after employees' persuasion, the London & North Western Railway named one of its locomotives 'Sister Dora'. 2-4-0 'Jumbo' number 2158 was chosen to carry the name and it was alleged to have been put on diagrams which took it through Walsall stationevery day. A working miniature version of this locomotive ran for a short time in the 1980s on the Walsall Steam Railway in Walsall Arboretum. The Walsall Steam Railway also regularly hauled passenger trains with a miniature LMS Black 5 4-6-0 number 5000 and this carried the name 'Sister Dora', too.
British Rail Class 31 diesel locomotive 31 430 was named after her. Several models of this locomotive have been produced in both 00 and N scales. Later British Rail Class 37 diesel loco 37 116 received the name from the Class 31.
