Isn't it typical - I start this blog full of good intentions and then work gets in the way.
However, I have been playing with a new database at
Ancestry - the Royal Aero Club Aviators' Certificates.
The
Royal Aero Club was founded in 1901 and from 1910 issued Aviators Certificates, internationally recognised under the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. The Club was, and still is, responsible for control of all private and sporting flying in the UK.
This database contains about 28,000 index cards and 34 photograph albums of aviators who were issued with their flying licences (certificates) by the Royal Aero Club from 1910-1950. These included the first military and naval personnel to become pilots. The original records are now held by the
Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon, London.
As I was playing, I noticed one or two women's names and started to wonder if any of these early female aviators were Scottish. It turns out that there were 16 of them:
Miss Elizabeth Ann Roche Anderson, born 1908 Aug 18 in Dullatur
Miss Winifred Joyce Drinkwater, born 1913 Apr 11 in Waterfoot
Isabel Clare Drummond, born 1915 Dec 12 in Ardrossan
Miss Ivy Barbara Mary Forsyth, born 1905 Apr 24 in Inverness
Mary Coutts Gordon, born 1906 Oct 13 in St Andrews
Sheila MacDonald Green, born 1901 Feb 15 in Elgin
Maie Hardie, born 1893 Jan 14 in Kirkaldy
Mrs Eleanor Amalie Harper-Gow, born 1894 Jun 21 in Cupar
Miss Janet Hendry, born 1906 Oct 23 in Ardrossan,
Marjorie Emily Meredith Hunter, born 1908 Jun 22 in Kilmalcolm
Dorothy Millicent Kay, born 1911 Jan 3 in Edinburgh
The Hon Miss Mildred Katherine Leith, born 1894 Mar 22 in St Andrews
Mrs Henrietta Learmont MacEwan, born 1897 Jun 21 in Hurlet
Mrs Margaret Helen Saunders, born 1901 Jun 30 in Montrose
Shaw Annie Gillespie 1904 May 28 Uddingston
Mrs Mora Morton Weir, born 1896 Jan 16 in Tayport, Fife
and there's photos of 12 of them.
Frustratingly, not one of then has an entry in either the Dictionary of National Biography or in Who Was Who.
Sheena
