Catherine Cappe or Catherine Harrison (3 June 1744 – 27 July 1821) was a British writer, diarist and philanthropist. Life She was born Catharine Harrison in Long Preston in 1744, daughter of the clergyman Jeremiah Harrison, an associate of Francis Blackburne, who was incumbent there, and later at Catterick, and his wife Sarah Winn, daughter of Edmund Winn. She was educated in York, with time at a boarding school where her studies included French. Harrison moved away from the Church of England under the influence of the free thinker Theophilus Lindsey, who had taken over her father Jeremiah's ministry at the Church of St Anne, Catterick after he died in 1763. She then went to live in Bedale, some miles from Catterick, with her mother and brother, visiting Lindsey often. She became a rational dissenter. Lindsey in 1773 founded his own Unitarian chapel in London. Catharine found his departure distressing. In 1782 she began an enterprise with Faith Gray who was a solicitor's wife in York. Between the two of them they created evening classes so that the workers at a local hemp factory could learn to read there and at Sunday School each week. With Faith Gray, Catharine Harrison established in 1784 a School for Spinning Worsted in York, offering an education for girls. The school was staffed by women volunteers and the girls were taught to read and to spin and in return the student's were paid wages for their work and clothed. Cappe wrote that the purpose was to "excite a spirit of virtuous industry among the children of the poor". The parents were keen because they were clothed as the students were taught how to create garments from the yarn they had spun. Given this education they were able to apply for better paid work and avoid the options usually open to poor uneducated girls. She and Gray were enthusiastic in reforming education at the Grey Coat School in York, where from 1786 the Ladies's Committee she headed took over management, and wrote about assisting other charity schools. She and Faith Gray founded the York Female Friendly Society and she married in 1788, becoming Catharine Cappe. She was widowed in 1800. She also tried to establish visitors to her local hospital. She had no ambition to vote but she felt that middle class women had a duty to inspect female sections of charities. Catharine Cappe was