Gladys Sandford MBE (née Coates, 4 March 1891 – 24 October 1971) was an Australian-New Zealand pioneering driver and aviator.

[1] Sandford was born at Summer Hill, Sydney, to Oswald Coates and Valerie Albine, née Lassau.

[1][3] She was promoted to head lady driver, and after the war finished she stayed on in England to lead the motor transport division at the New Zealand military hospital outside London.

The route had been planned to copy Francis Birtles' trip from Adelaide to Darwin, however floods and road conditions meant the itinerary had to be adapted as they travelled.

[1] In December 1928, in Sydney, she divorced, Frederick Esk Sandford,[6] only days before he died after a car accident near Glenrowan, Victoria.

During World War II she worked as a censor for the Army; she also founded the Women's Transport Corps, a group of almost 400 members who underwent training in driving and car maintenance.