16th October 2013 marks the 80th anniversary of the death of Lady Katherine Parsons, founder of the Women’s Engineering Society and wife of Sir Charles Algernon Parsons of Kirkwhelpington, Northumberland.
Lady Parsons was an engineer of ability and was an Honorary Fellow of the North East Coast Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders.
The Women’s Engineering Society is still an active charity representing and inspiring women in engineering today.
In 1919 women were in the minority in engineering, and almost 95 years since the inception of the Women’s Engineering Society, figures for women in engineering are still unacceptably low, at less than 10% on average across the sector.
The Women’s Engineering Society has a history of encouraging women in engineering, and rewarding and celebrating the achievements of our pioneering engineers, and we continue to do this today. It encourages girls to take inspiration from these great women of the past and to become the pioneers of the future.
“We know that the we need more engineers in the UK, we know that it makes business sense to improve diversity in engineering, and we know that women make great engineers, so let’s start getting the message out there to schoolgirls that engineering is a real career option for them,” says Dawn Bonfield, vice president of WES.
