Duffus, Katherine Balfour (1878/9-1928), fundraiser for medical education

• Jones, Katherine

Katherine Jones was born at Hartlepool, County Durham, in 1878 or 1879 (she was 32 at the time of the 1911 census).

She married James Balfour Duffus (1782-1942) at Hartlepool in the third quarter of 1907 and gave birth to a daughter, Jean Mary, at Middlesbrough on 1 October 1908.

At the time of the 1911 census the family were staying at 'St Helena', in Elstow, Bedfordshire, and James is recorded as the manager of a laundry company. In the 1920s they were living at Huntley (or Huntly) Cottage, Harpenden.

In 1920 Mrs Balfour Duffus is recorded in connection with an appeal for funds for the Royal Surgical Aid Society as being the chief organiser of the Society's Bournemouth Committee (Bournemouth Guardian, 4 Sept. 1920, p. 5), and from the following year her husband was an active fundraiser for the University of Bristol (Western Times, 30 Nov. 1921, p. 4; Somerset Standard, 23 Dec. 1921, p. 6; Western Daily Press, 31 Jan. 1922, p. 8; Gloucester Citizen, 2 Feb. 1922, p. 3; etc.), efforts in which Mrs Balfour Duffus was evidently also involved.

In 1924 Mrs Balfour Duffus was appointed organising secretary for the Jubilee Endowment Fund of the London (Royal Free Hospital) School of Medicine for Women. The Jubilee was to be marked by a special effort to raise £50,000 to endow chairs in pathology, physiology, and anatomy in the names of Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, and Sophia Jex-Blake respectively. In a press notice of this appointment it was observed that 'Mrs Balfour Duffus made many friends in Bristol during her work for the University of Bristol appeal'.

In 1926 she travelled to the United States to solicit funds for the first of these chairs (PETH 1/42).

She died at home in Huntly Cottage on 17 January 1928 (Bath Chronicle, 28 Jan. 1928).