Dorothy Wyndlow Pattison, considered by many to have been a civilian counterpart to Florence Nightingale, taught for a while as the mistress at Little Woolstone school, yet such would become her later renown that, following her death, she was commemorated by the first public statue to be erected in Britain to a woman, other than royalty. As a little girl Dorothy had lived in the Yorkshire village of Hauxwell, but she suffered so badly from a weak chest that often she had to stay away from school, and it was because during these absences that she occupied her time by ‘washing and attending to people and dolls’, that her ambition to pursue ‘the great adventure of nursing’ began. At Hauxwell Dorothy did not enjoy a happy domestic life. It seemed that her Reverend father had little love for either his wife or daughters, and so she unsurprisingly began to seek an opportunity to leave. One possibility was to join Florence Nightingale’s Sisters of Mercy, but since this was forbidden by her father she would have to wait until 1860 for another opportunity to arise. This came in the form of an advertisement for a schoolmistress, to teach, at a salary of £26p.a., at a newly completed school in Little Woolstone, and having obtained her father’s consent she applied, and was chosen from the 25 persons interviewed. As yet, the adjoining school teacher’s house was incomplete, and so for a short while in 1861 Dorothy stayed at the Great Woolstone rectory as a guest of the Reverend Edward Hill, who had been instrumental in the foundation. Despite being officially appointed as a teacher, whenever one of the pupils fell ill it would always be Dorothy who tended the child, and soon she became a much loved figure in the neighbourhood, both for her care, and for her devotion to those in nursing need. Yet the strains eventually took their toll, and Dorothy soon fell ill. She then returned to her home, but having recovered instead of resuming her position at Little Woolstone she joined the nursing ‘Sisterhood of the Good Samaritan’ at Redcar, and it was here that she would become known as Sister Dora. In 1865 she was then asked to take charge of the newly opened hospital at Walsall, Staffordshire, but this work she had to abandon on contracting smallpox. Nevertheless, within a few months she began work as matron at the Bridge Street Hospital, but by again proving tireless in her devotions she again began to damage her health, and in 1878, at the age of 46 she began to suffer a weak chest. She then went to live alone in a small house near to the hospital, and on December 24th she died. It had been Dorothy’s wish that ‘no vain eulogy’ should be made of her, but nevertheless the citizens of Walsall decided that a statue should be erected in her honour, and in the market place this was unveiled in October 1886. As for Little Woolstone, in the church a small locally made plaque was placed on the north wall of the nave, being moved during the New City restorations to the chancel.