Her seven younger sisters included the social reformer Beatrice Webb, Baroness Passfield, while Charles Cripps, 1st Baron Parmoor, and Henry Hobhouse were among her brothers-in-law.

[1] In 1875, after a particularly difficult year, the 28-year-old Kate Potter left her family home and went to London to enlist in the activities of Octavia Hill and started training for the Charity Organization Society in Whitechapel, as well as working as an organiser of an East End boys' clubs, before joining Samuel Augustus and Henrietta Barnett in their philanthropic work.

[1] Her parents frowned upon her decision, as did her elder sister Lawrencina, but ultimately granted her a small allowance which enabled her to settle in Great College Street in Westminster.

[3] As Hill's full-time aide from 1876 until 1883, Kate Potter's duties included running youth clubs and collecting rents.

[5] Her friendliness made her popular even as a rent collector, and she eventually managed to persuade her sisters Theresa and Beatrice to join her.

[6] Catherine Potter met the 48-year-old Leonard Courtney, then Liberal cabinet minister, in 1880,[1] and became friends with him at Charles Booth's dinner parties.

[1] Throughout 1901, she visited South Africa to report on conditions inside the concentration camps built for Boer civilians.

Lady Courtney championed the "innocent enemies" of the First World War and participated in the founding of an emergency committee aimed at helping German civilians living in Britain.