History of women in engineering in the United Kingdom

Women have played a role in engineering in the United Kingdom for hundreds of years, despite the various societal barriers facing them.

[3][4] There are several examples of women filing patents in the 19th century, including Sarah Guppy, Henrietta Vansittart and Hertha Ayrton.

[22] Georgina Kermode's career as socialite, suffragette, metallurgist and serial patentee (in particular the first successful postage stamp selling machines), seems to have emerged from her early marriage to an engineer, whom she soon left behind.

[24] Women in engineering such as Dorothée Pullinger,[25] Rachel Parsons,[26] Margaret Dorothea Rowbotham[27] and Laura Annie Willson[28] all learned important aspects of their trades through working during World War One, particularly in the production of munitions.

[29] Recognition of the roles naval architects Blanche Thornycroft, Eily Keary, and Rachel Parsons played was recognised on 9 April 1919 when they became the first three women to be admitted as associate members by the Royal Institution of Naval Architects, Keary having been the first woman to contribute a paper in the institution's transactions in 1916.

The act enabled women to join the professions and professional bodies (including those representing the engineering professions), to sit on juries and be awarded degrees: "A person shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage from the exercise of any public function, or from being appointed to or holding any civil or judicial office or post, or from entering or assuming or carrying on any civil profession or vocation, or for admission to any incorporated society (whether incorporated by Royal Charter or otherwise)..."[8] It was an enabling act, not an enforcing one, but did open the doors of the professional engineering institutions to women who could earn the qualifications and had the professional experience required to pass the entry examinations.

[10][12] The first Secretary appointed was Caroline Haslett, who had trained as a boiler-maker during World War One, and was later made a Dame for her services to industry and business.

[41] In July 1925 the First International Conference of Women in Science, Industry & Commerce was held in London, during the British Empire Exhibition.

It was organised by Caroline Haslett & WES, and opened by the Duchess of York in her first public engagement since her marriage into the royal family.

Chaired by Lady Astor, the first woman MP to take her seat in the House of Commons, its speakers and attendee list represented key figures in the suffrage and women's rights movements in Britain and abroad, including Millicent Fawcett, Viscountess Rhondda, Kerstin Hesselgren the first woman elected to Upper House of the Swedish parliament and American engineer Ethel H.

In 1927, Dorothy Donaldson Buchanan successfully passed the admission examination to become the first female member of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

In 1934, pilot and engineer Amy Johnson became the youngest president of WES, serving under her married name of 'Mrs Jim Mollison', four years after becoming the first woman to fly solo from the UK to Australia.

[47] That same year, Jeanie Dicks, the first female member of the Electrical Contractors Association, was responsible for the first permanent electrification of Winchester Cathedral.

[35] Because of her German heritage, she was interned as an enemy alien at the Rushen camp on the Isle of Wight but returned to an engineering career once freed in 1942.

[52] In 1938, Marja Ludwika Ziff (later known as Maria Watkins) became the first woman to study electrical engineering at the University of Edinburgh, the professor who had offered her a place believing her application was from a Polish man.

Beatrice Shilling, for instance, remained at the RAE to work on rocket engines and was consulted by NASA on runway surfaces for the future space shuttles.

[59] In the same era, Anne Burns introduced the use of strain gauges for inflight testing, contributing to solving the reasons for the Comet airliner crashes of the 1950s.

[62][63] In 1954, Mary Sudbury became the only female engineer to work on the wind tunnels used for supersonic aircraft testing at RAE, and part of the development of Concorde, but still encountered petty misogyny.