Ella Hudson Gasking

Her father was a tea packer and produce merchant in Sheffield and found a way to preserve vegetables, especially peas, by canning.

[4] She also visited the United States to investigate the latest canning methods and attended the American Canners' Convention in Chicago.

[5] She was a member of the Women's Engineering Society and 1938 shared an article about the new factory, which produced 1.5 million tins of peas a week.

[6] Batchelors was taken over by Unilever in 1943, but Ella Gasking continued to work in the business until she retired as chairman and joint managing director in 1948.

In that year she was appointed OBE in the Birthday Honours in recognition of her contribution to the grocery industry and to the war effort, as the firm had been a leading supplier of canned goods to the British armed forces.

[8] Ella Batchelor married Cyril Trist Gasking, then a medical student serving in the army, on 11 February 1915 in her hometown.