The theme of International Women’s Day 2022 is to “Break the Bias”. This is about challenging perceptions of gender and recognising that anyone can do any job or career.
To celebrate, we’re looking back at some of the histories of women in engineering at Loughborough College who have been breaking biases for over 100 years!
In 1919, Loughborough Technical Institute welcomed over 300 students onto its Diploma in Automobile Engineering class. Of which, four were women. They would be some of the first women in the entire country to study engineering. They were Claudia Parsons, Dorothea Travers, Patience Erskine, and Verena Holmes.
The course took place over a 40-hour working week, with primarily practical training. Records show that they had to clock in and out just like a commercial factory.
Upon graduating, they continually broke new ground at every step of their careers. Claudia was the first woman to circumnavigate the globe in an automobile, was a member of the Women's Engineering Society and worked in munitions production during the second world war. Dorothea was among the first women to be elected to the Institution of Automobile Engineers. Verena Holmes was the first-ever woman member elected to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
In 1920, pioneering Engineer Annette Ashberry brought Loughborough a revolution to the industry. A factory owned and employed with exclusively women. Atalanta Engineering Ltd operated with Loughborough College providing theoretical training for employees. For nearly 20 years, the company exceeded all expectations they moved premises to accommodate demand. Unfortunately, the onset of World War 2 caused the company to close as labour was re-organised to help the war effort.
In 1930 the Deputy Chief Inspector of Factories, Miss Hilda Martindale, toured education institutes to recruit more women to the male-dominated field of factory inspection. She realised that a knowledge gap hampered women from entering the field. Miss Martindale made a special visit to Loughborough College to persuade Principal Herbert Schofield to put on a new course that would give women the skills needed for employment in machinery and engineering processes and an understanding of the processes and terminology involved.
The “Special Training Course in Simplified Engineering for Women” took place over 12 weeks. Albeit with a slightly patronising title, the course proved to be popular with university graduates and employers alike. Cadbury’s even paid for several workers to take the course. Many of the graduates went on to help implement emergency regulations during the Second World War.
This is just some of the fascinating early history of our place in women in STEM fields, which we continue to be a part of to this day. We’re excited about the future and the stories we’ll get to share with students to come.
If you're interested in learning more, head to the links below.
https://www.womeninstem.co.uk/
https://www.internationalwomensday.com/