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Women's Engineering Society

January 20, 2023

Not to be confused with Society of Women Engineers.

The Women's Engineering Society is a United Kingdom professional learned society and networking body for women engineers, scientists and technologists. It was the first professional body set up for women working in all areas of engineering, predating the Society of Women Engineers by around 30 years.[1]

Women's Engineering Society
AbbreviationWES
Formation1919
Legal statusCharity
Location
Coordinates51°53′46″N 0°12′09″W / 51.896062°N 0.202365°W / 51.896062; -0.202365Coordinates: 51°53′46″N 0°12′09″W / 51.896062°N 0.202365°W / 51.896062; -0.202365
Region
United Kingdom
FieldsEngineering
Current President
Dawn Childs
Websitewww.wes.org.uk
Elizabeth Donnelly, WES CEO, on the occasion of the unveiling of a Tunnel Boring Machine named after WES founder Rachel Parsons

History

The society was formed on 23rd June 1919, after the First World War, during which many women had taken up roles in engineering to replace men who were involved in the military effort.[2][3] While it had been seen as necessary to bring women into engineering to fill the gap left by men joining the armed forces, the government, employers, and trades unions were against the continuing employment of women after the war. The Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act 1919 gave soldiers returning from World War I their pre-war jobs back and meant many women could no longer work in roles they were employed to fill during the war.[4]

This led a group of seven women, including Lady Katharine Parsons, her daughter Rachel Parsons, Lady Margaret Moir, Laura Annie Willson, Eleanor Shelley-Rolls; Janetta Mary Ornsby and Margaret Rowbotham to form the Women's Engineering Society, with the aim of enabling women to gain training, jobs and acceptance in engineering fields.[5][1][6][7] The Society's first Secretary was Caroline Haslett.[8]

Early members in the 1920s and 1930s included Verena Holmes, Hilda Lyon and Margaret Partridge.[1] Pilot and engineer, Amy Johnson, who was the first woman to fly solo from the United Kingdom to Australia, was a member of WES and served as president between 1935-37.[9] A registry of members from 1935 shows there were members from across the world, such as the United States of America, including sociologist and industrial engineer Lillian Gilbreth, and Germany, including Asta Hampe and Ilse Knot-ter Meer.[10]

The Society celebrated its 95th year in 2014 with the launch of International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) on 23 June 2014.[11] To this day the Society continues to organise INWED and set the annual theme. The Society celebrated its centenary in 2019 with the launch of the WES Centenary Trail,[12] a project to highlight the historic stories of women engineers.[13]

Work and campaigns

Society members have advised the UK government on evolving employment practices for women. Constituted as a professional society with membership grades based on qualification and experience, the society promotes the study and practice of engineering and allied sciences among women.

WES is represented by groups. The work of the groups focuses on:

  • support to members and women engineers in general,
  • encouragement of women to study engineering and take up engineering careers,
  • promotion of corporate gender diversity,
  • speaking as the collective voice of women engineers.
The Woman Engineer
LanguageEnglish
Publication details
History1919–present
FrequencyQuarterly
Standard abbreviations
ISO 4 (alt) · Bluebook (alt1 · alt2)
NLM · MathSciNet
ISO 4Woman Eng.
Indexing
CODEN · JSTOR · LCCN
MIAR · NLM · Scopus
OCLC no.964861124
Links
  • Journal homepage
  • Online access

The society produces the journal The Woman Engineer which was edited by Caroline Haslett in its early years.[14] The journal contained technical articles in its early years but now gives a view of work in engineering disciplines and women's involvement in them.[15] The digital archive of the journal is held by the Institution of Engineering and Technology.[14]

The Women's Engineering Society holds an annual conference, a student conference and regional workshops and networking events.

Outreach to schools

In 1969, President Verena Holmes left a legacy to fund an annual lecture to inspire school girls. Run by the Verena Holmes Trust, the first lecture tour was in 1969 during the first UK Women in Engineering Year.[16] It was delivered at various venues to children aged nine to eleven to encourage their interest in engineering, [17][18] The lectures were given by leading engineers with Mary Kendrick giving the lecture in 1981.[19]

Members provided the 'technical women power' for the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) buses that were launched following the WISE Year in 1984, an initiative that continued into the 1990s.

In 2014 WES set up an outreach programme called Magnificent Women (and their flying machines) which replicates the work that women did during the First World War in making aircraft wings, and this was aimed at secondary school girls.[20] The programme was discontinued in 2018 as the Society refocused its campaigns on supporting the engineering industry to be more inclusive.[21]

MentorSET

MentorSET is a mentoring scheme for engineers, inspired by the WES President Petra Gratton (née Godwin) in 2000.[22] The scheme was a collaborative project with national network of women scientists (AWISE). It was a mentoring scheme to help women in their career and to support them back into engineering after a career break. MentorSET has been funded by DTI, the UK Resource Centre for Women in SET, and BAE Systems. In 2015 the MentorSET programme was relaunched with funding from DECC, now BEIS and Women in Nuclear and is now relevant to women working in science and technology as well as engineering.

Membership

Members are drawn from women who have entered the profession through routes varying from traditional apprenticeship to higher education leading to graduate and further degrees. The participation of male engineers in the society is encouraged.

Current membership exceeds 2,000 individuals and over 120 corporate and education partners.[citation needed]

Governance

The Women's Engineering Society is a charitable company, governed by the President and the Board of Directors of the Company, who are also Trustees of the Charity.[23] Day to day operations are delegated to the Chief Executive Officer and staff.

Board of Trustees

President

Trustees

  • Paul Cliff
  • Dr Katherine Critchley
  • Professor Elena Gaura
  • Sarah Haslam MBE
  • Chrisma Jain
  • Dr Tosha Nembhard
  • Professor Vince Pizzoni
  • Susan Robson
  • Mamta Singhal MBE
  • Emily Spearman

Chief Executive Officer

Presidents

Notable historical members


See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Heald, Henrietta. (2020). Magnificent Women and Their Revolutionary Machines. Unbound. ISBN 978-1-78352-660-4. OCLC 1134535786.
  2. ^ Canel, Annie; Oldenziel, Ruth (2005). "Am I a Lady or an Engineer? The Origins of the Women's Engineering Society in Britain, 1918-1940". Crossing Boundaries, Building Bridges. Routledge. ISBN 9781135286811. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  3. ^ Heald, Henrietta (2019). Magnificent women and their revolutionary machines. London. ISBN 978-1-78352-660-4. OCLC 1080083743.
  4. ^ "Changing role of women in wartime". BBC Bitesize: Domestic impact of war: society and culture. Retrieved 2020-06-24.
  5. ^ Women's Engineering Society. "The Woman Engineer". The Woman Engineer. 1 (1): 1.
  6. ^ Gooday, Graeme (2019-08-07). "Who launched the Women's Engineering Society in 1919?". Electrifying Women. Retrieved 2020-06-24.
  7. ^ Koerner, Emily Rees (2020-06-16). "Why the Women's Engineering Society still has its work cut out after 100 years". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-06-24.
  8. ^ "Archives Biographies: Dame Caroline Haslett". www.theiet.org. Retrieved 2020-06-24.
  9. ^ "History | Women's Engineering Society". www.wes.org.uk. Retrieved 2020-06-24.
  10. ^ Rees, Emily (2019-08-22). "Learning more from the archives: the Register of Women Engineers, 1935". Electrifying Women. Retrieved 2020-06-24.
  11. ^ "International Women in Engineering Day". International Women in Engineering Day. Women's Engineering Society. Retrieved 15 December 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  12. ^ "WES Centenary Trail Project | Women's Engineering Society". www.wes.org.uk. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  13. ^ "WES Centenary Trail". Women's Engineering Society. 2020-03-04.
  14. ^ a b "The Woman Engineer Journal".
  15. ^ "Woman Engineer journal online exhibition". www.theiet.org. The IET. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  16. ^ "The Verena Holmes Lecture Series | Women's Engineering Society". www.wes.org.uk. Retrieved 2018-06-18.
  17. ^ Women's Engineering Society: Role Models; accessed 24 February 2013]
  18. ^ Verena Holmes Lecture, wes.org.uk; accessed 22 June 2015.
  19. ^ Kendrick, Mary (1988-10-01). "The Thames barrier". Landscape and Urban Planning. Special Issue The Landscape of Water. 16 (1): 57–68. doi:10.1016/0169-2046(88)90034-5. ISSN 0169-2046.
  20. ^ "Magnificent Women". www.wes.org.uk. Women's Engineering Society. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  21. ^ "About WES - who we are | Women's Engineering Society". www.wes.org.uk. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  22. ^ "Mentor SET". Mentor SET. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  23. ^ "Trustees and Members of Directors' Committees | Women's Engineering Society". www.wes.org.uk. Retrieved 2022-12-15.

External links

  • Official website
  • The Woman Engineer journal archives
  • MentorSET
  • National Women in Engineering Day

January 20, 2023
women, engineering, society, confused, with, society, women, engineers, united, kingdom, professional, learned, society, networking, body, women, engineers, scientists, technologists, first, professional, body, women, working, areas, engineering, predating, so. Not to be confused with Society of Women Engineers The Women s Engineering Society is a United Kingdom professional learned society and networking body for women engineers scientists and technologists It was the first professional body set up for women working in all areas of engineering predating the Society of Women Engineers by around 30 years 1 Women s Engineering SocietyAbbreviationWESFormation1919Legal statusCharityLocationMichael Faraday House Stevenage HertfordshireCoordinates51 53 46 N 0 12 09 W 51 896062 N 0 202365 W 51 896062 0 202365 Coordinates 51 53 46 N 0 12 09 W 51 896062 N 0 202365 W 51 896062 0 202365RegionUnited KingdomFieldsEngineeringCurrent PresidentDawn ChildsWebsitewww wbr wes wbr org wbr ukElizabeth Donnelly WES CEO on the occasion of the unveiling of a Tunnel Boring Machine named after WES founder Rachel Parsons Contents 1 History 2 Work and campaigns 2 1 Outreach to schools 2 2 MentorSET 3 Membership 4 Governance 4 1 Board of Trustees 4 2 Chief Executive Officer 5 Presidents 6 Notable historical members 7 See also 8 References 9 External linksHistory EditThe society was formed on 23rd June 1919 after the First World War during which many women had taken up roles in engineering to replace men who were involved in the military effort 2 3 While it had been seen as necessary to bring women into engineering to fill the gap left by men joining the armed forces the government employers and trades unions were against the continuing employment of women after the war The Restoration of Pre War Practices Act 1919 gave soldiers returning from World War I their pre war jobs back and meant many women could no longer work in roles they were employed to fill during the war 4 This led a group of seven women including Lady Katharine Parsons her daughter Rachel Parsons Lady Margaret Moir Laura Annie Willson Eleanor Shelley Rolls Janetta Mary Ornsby and Margaret Rowbotham to form the Women s Engineering Society with the aim of enabling women to gain training jobs and acceptance in engineering fields 5 1 6 7 The Society s first Secretary was Caroline Haslett 8 Early members in the 1920s and 1930s included Verena Holmes Hilda Lyon and Margaret Partridge 1 Pilot and engineer Amy Johnson who was the first woman to fly solo from the United Kingdom to Australia was a member of WES and served as president between 1935 37 9 A registry of members from 1935 shows there were members from across the world such as the United States of America including sociologist and industrial engineer Lillian Gilbreth and Germany including Asta Hampe and Ilse Knot ter Meer 10 The Society celebrated its 95th year in 2014 with the launch of International Women in Engineering Day INWED on 23 June 2014 11 To this day the Society continues to organise INWED and set the annual theme The Society celebrated its centenary in 2019 with the launch of the WES Centenary Trail 12 a project to highlight the historic stories of women engineers 13 Work and campaigns EditSociety members have advised the UK government on evolving employment practices for women Constituted as a professional society with membership grades based on qualification and experience the society promotes the study and practice of engineering and allied sciences among women WES is represented by groups The work of the groups focuses on support to members and women engineers in general encouragement of women to study engineering and take up engineering careers promotion of corporate gender diversity speaking as the collective voice of women engineers The Woman EngineerLanguageEnglishPublication detailsHistory1919 presentFrequencyQuarterlyStandard abbreviationsISO 4 alt Bluebook alt1 alt2 NLM MathSciNetISO 4Woman Eng IndexingCODEN JSTOR LCCNMIAR NLM ScopusOCLC no 964861124LinksJournal homepage Online accessThe society produces the journal The Woman Engineer which was edited by Caroline Haslett in its early years 14 The journal contained technical articles in its early years but now gives a view of work in engineering disciplines and women s involvement in them 15 The digital archive of the journal is held by the Institution of Engineering and Technology 14 The Women s Engineering Society holds an annual conference a student conference and regional workshops and networking events Outreach to schools Edit In 1969 President Verena Holmes left a legacy to fund an annual lecture to inspire school girls Run by the Verena Holmes Trust the first lecture tour was in 1969 during the first UK Women in Engineering Year 16 It was delivered at various venues to children aged nine to eleven to encourage their interest in engineering 17 18 The lectures were given by leading engineers with Mary Kendrick giving the lecture in 1981 19 Members provided the technical women power for the Women in Science and Engineering WISE buses that were launched following the WISE Year in 1984 an initiative that continued into the 1990s In 2014 WES set up an outreach programme called Magnificent Women and their flying machines which replicates the work that women did during the First World War in making aircraft wings and this was aimed at secondary school girls 20 The programme was discontinued in 2018 as the Society refocused its campaigns on supporting the engineering industry to be more inclusive 21 MentorSET Edit MentorSET is a mentoring scheme for engineers inspired by the WES President Petra Gratton nee Godwin in 2000 22 The scheme was a collaborative project with national network of women scientists AWISE It was a mentoring scheme to help women in their career and to support them back into engineering after a career break MentorSET has been funded by DTI the UK Resource Centre for Women in SET and BAE Systems In 2015 the MentorSET programme was relaunched with funding from DECC now BEIS and Women in Nuclear and is now relevant to women working in science and technology as well as engineering Membership EditMembers are drawn from women who have entered the profession through routes varying from traditional apprenticeship to higher education leading to graduate and further degrees The participation of male engineers in the society is encouraged Current membership exceeds 2 000 individuals and over 120 corporate and education partners citation needed Governance EditThe Women s Engineering Society is a charitable company governed by the President and the Board of Directors of the Company who are also Trustees of the Charity 23 Day to day operations are delegated to the Chief Executive Officer and staff Board of Trustees Edit President Dame Dawn Childs DBE FREngTrustees Paul Cliff Dr Katherine Critchley Professor Elena Gaura Sarah Haslam MBE Chrisma Jain Dr Tosha Nembhard Professor Vince Pizzoni Susan Robson Mamta Singhal MBE Emily SpearmanChief Executive Officer Edit Elizabeth DonnellyPresidents Edit1919 1921 Rachel Parsons 1922 1925 The Hon Katharine Lady Parsons 1926 1928 Laura Annie Willson MBE 1929 1930 Margaret Lady Moir OBE 1931 1932 Verena Holmes 1933 1934 Elizabeth Kennedy 1935 1937 Amy Johnson CBE 1938 1939 Edith Mary Douglas 1940 1941 Dame Caroline Haslett DBE JP 1942 1943 Gertrude Lilian Entwisle 1944 1945 Margaret Partridge 1946 1947 Winifred Hackett 1948 1949 Frances Heywood 1950 1951 Sheila Leather 1952 1953 Ella Mary Collin 1954 1955 Dorothy Pile 1955 1956 Kathleen Mary Cook 1957 1958 Marjorie Bell 1959 1960 Madeleine Nobbs 1961 1962 Isabel Hardwich 1963 Cicely Thompson MBE 1964 Dorothy Cridland 1965 Cicely Thompson MBE 1966 1967 Rose Winslade OBE 1968 1969 Elizabeth Laverick OBE 1970 1971 May Maple 1972 1973 Peggy Hodges OBE 1974 1975 Gwendolen Sergant 1976 1977 Henrietta Bussell 1978 1979 Veronica Milligan 1980 1981 Maria Watkins 1982 1983 Rosemary West 1983 1985 Daphne Jackson OBE 1985 1987 Linda Maynard 1987 1989 Hilda Blount 1989 1991 Dorothy Hatfield OBE 1991 1993 Sue Bird 1993 1995 Lynette Willoughby 1995 1997 Mary Harris Sue Bird 1997 1998 Philippa Ayton 1998 Petra Godwin 1999 Suzanne Flynn 2000 Nicole Rockliff 2001 Jackie Longworth MBE 2002 Jackie Carpenter 2003 2004 Pam Wain 2005 2006 Dawn Fitt OBE 2007 Grazyna Whapshott 2008 2010 Jan Peters MBE 2011 2013 Milada Williams 2013 2014 Carol Marsh OBE 2014 2015 Dawn Bonfield MBE 2015 2018 Benita Mehra 2018 present Dame Dawn Childs DBE FREngNotable historical members EditAnnette Ashberry Ethel H Bailey Mary Bailey aviator Cleone Benest Florence Blenkiron Gabrielle Borthwick Frances Bradfield M A Cloudesley Brereton Dorothy Donaldson Buchanan Karen Burt Kathleen M Butler Mrs Pender Chalmers Anne Chamney Letitia Chitty Annie Pearson Viscountess Cowdray Evelyn May Cridlan Iris Cummins Elsie Joy Davison Elsie Louisa Deacon Olive Dennis Beryl May Dent Maude Dickinson Jeanie Dicks Mary E Dillon Victoria Drummond Elsie Eaves Joy Ferguson Mary Fergusson M Elsa Gardner Ella Hudson Gasking Elizabeth Georgeson Lillian Moller Gilbreth Pauline Gower Miriam Violet Griffith Helen Grimshaw Asta Hampe Verena Holmes Betty Johnson physicist Ilse Knott ter Meer Mary Kendrick Ayyalasomayajula Lalitha Theodora Llewelyn Davies Betty Lindsay Kathleen Lonsdale Hilda Lyon Marguerite Massart Mabel Lucy Matthews Monica Maurice Mary Maxwell Channell Zella McBerty Sheila McGuffie Florence Violet McKenzie Maxine Blossom Miles Miriam Muwanga Ruth Rowland Nichols Madeleine Nobbs Helena Normanton Claudia Parsons Margaret Partridge Gabrielle Patterson Beryl Platt Baroness Platt of Writtle Cicely Popplewell Dorothee Pullinger Ira Rischowski Margaret Dorothea Rowbotham Dorothy Rowntree Evelyn Roxburgh Ruth Shafer Anne Gillespie Shaw Eleanor Shelley Rolls Beatrice Shilling Premala Sivaprakasapillai Sivasegaram Lesley Souter Dorothy Smith 1898 1975 Dorothy Spicer Edith Anne Stoney Florence Stoney Blanche Thornycroft Constance Tipper Elsie Eleanor Verity Theresa Wallach Maria WatkinsSee also EditHistory of women in engineering in the United Kingdom Atalanta Ltd Electrical Association for WomenReferences Edit a b c Heald Henrietta 2020 Magnificent Women and Their Revolutionary Machines Unbound ISBN 978 1 78352 660 4 OCLC 1134535786 Canel Annie Oldenziel Ruth 2005 Am I a Lady or an Engineer The Origins of the Women s Engineering Society in Britain 1918 1940 Crossing Boundaries Building Bridges Routledge ISBN 9781135286811 Retrieved 27 November 2017 Heald Henrietta 2019 Magnificent women and their revolutionary machines London ISBN 978 1 78352 660 4 OCLC 1080083743 Changing role of women in wartime BBC Bitesize Domestic impact of war society and culture Retrieved 2020 06 24 Women s Engineering Society The Woman Engineer The Woman Engineer 1 1 1 Gooday Graeme 2019 08 07 Who launched the Women s Engineering Society in 1919 Electrifying Women Retrieved 2020 06 24 Koerner Emily Rees 2020 06 16 Why the Women s Engineering Society still has its work cut out after 100 years The Guardian ISSN 0261 3077 Retrieved 2020 06 24 Archives Biographies Dame Caroline Haslett www theiet org Retrieved 2020 06 24 History Women s Engineering Society www wes org uk Retrieved 2020 06 24 Rees Emily 2019 08 22 Learning more from the archives the Register of Women Engineers 1935 Electrifying Women Retrieved 2020 06 24 International Women in Engineering Day International Women in Engineering Day Women s Engineering Society Retrieved 15 December 2022 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint url status link WES Centenary Trail Project Women s Engineering Society www wes org uk Retrieved 2022 12 15 WES Centenary Trail Women s Engineering Society 2020 03 04 a b The Woman Engineer Journal Woman Engineer journal online exhibition www theiet org The IET Retrieved 27 November 2017 The Verena Holmes Lecture Series Women s Engineering Society www wes org uk Retrieved 2018 06 18 Women s Engineering Society Role Models accessed 24 February 2013 Verena Holmes Lecture wes org uk accessed 22 June 2015 Kendrick Mary 1988 10 01 The Thames barrier Landscape and Urban Planning Special Issue The Landscape of Water 16 1 57 68 doi 10 1016 0169 2046 88 90034 5 ISSN 0169 2046 Magnificent Women www wes org uk Women s Engineering Society Retrieved 27 November 2017 About WES who we are Women s Engineering Society www wes org uk Retrieved 2022 12 15 Mentor SET Mentor SET Retrieved 27 November 2017 Trustees and Members of Directors Committees Women s Engineering Society www wes org uk Retrieved 2022 12 15 External links EditOfficial website The Woman Engineer journal archives MentorSET National Women in Engineering Day Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Women 27s Engineering Society amp oldid 1131710438, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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