Drew, Catherine (1832–1910), journalist and writer, was born 27 May 1832 in Broughshane, Co. Antrim, the third of eight daughters of the Rev. Thomas Drew (qv), DD, curate of the joint parish of St Patricks, Skerry and Racavan in Broughshane (1829–33), and his wife Isabella (née Dalton), the daughter of a Dublin attorney. There were also four sons, though most of her siblings died young. Catherine was reared in Belfast, where her father was rector of Christ Church (1833–59) in Durham St. From about 1866 Catherine lived at 60 Upper Sackville St., Dublin, with her brother the architect (Sir) Thomas Drew (qv), and probably began her journalistic career contributing articles of architectural interest to the Irish Builder, with which her brother was associated. She subsequently wrote for the Belfast Newsletter and, on the suggestion of its proprietor James Alexander Henderson (qv) moved in 1871 to London, where she worked as the paper's London correspondent. Her columns 'Metropolitan gossip' and 'Ladies' letter' were among the earliest regular columns written for women readers and provided society news to her Belfast readership. She also contributed articles to the British Architect, London Society and the Literary World.
A founder member of the Ladies' Press Association and an activist for the rights of women journalists, Drew was also a prominent figure in the Institute of Journalists, which she represented several times at international congresses. At the time of her death she was serving as its vice-president, and for many years worked for its Orphan Fund, the foundation of which she had originally suggested in 1891. She also wrote novels, among them Harry Chalgraves's legacy (1876) and The lutanistes of St Jacobi's (1881). Her lecture 'Dress, economic and technic', given as part of the Exhibition of Women's Industries in Bristol (March 1885), was later published as a pamphlet. She died 26 August 1910, at her home in Holland Street, Kensington, London, and was buried at Kensington Hanwell Cemetery, Broadway, where her sister-in-law Ada, Lady Drew, erected a memorial in the form of a celtic cross. A portrait of her appeared in the Journalist and Newspaper Proprietor (14 April 1894, p. 118). In her will she bequeathed to the to the Institute of Journalists a jewel-studded gold bracelet presented to her by the institute on her retirement from journalism in 1908. Known as the 'Drew Bracelet', it has been worn during their term of office by women presidents or the wives of male presidents ever since, thus perpetuating the name of a pioneer of the institute.