#BlogTour-‘Magnificent Women and their Revolutionary Machines’ by Henrietta Heald

About the book…

In 1919, in the wake of the First World War, a group of extraordinary women came together to create the Women s Engineering Society. They were trailblazers, pioneers and boundary breakers, but many of their stories have been lost to history. To mark the centenary of the society’s creation, Magnificent Women and Their Revolutionary Machines brings them back to life.

Their leaders were Katharine and Rachel Parsons, wife and daughter of the engineering genius Charles Parsons, and Caroline Haslett, a self-taught electrical engineer who campaigned to free women from domestic drudgery and became the most powerful professional woman of her age. Also featured are Eleanor Shelley-Rolls, sister of car magnate Charles Rolls; Viscountess Rhondda, a director of thirty-three companies who founded and edited the revolutionary Time and Tide magazine; and Laura Willson, a suffragette and labour rights activist from Halifax, who was twice imprisoned for her political activities.

This is not just the story of the women themselves, but also the era in which they lived. Beginning at the moment when women in Britain were allowed to vote for the first time, and to stand for Parliament and when several professions were opened up to them Magnificent Women charts the changing attitudes towards women in society and in the workplace.

My thanks to Unbound and Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for the tour invite and my gifted copy of the book! Magnificent Women is out from the 19th September in hardback format.

I would dearly love to write this review without using the words ‘inspiring’, ‘fearless’ and ‘imaginative’ but sadly I cannot. These words are literally the backbone of this remarkable book, published in time to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Women’s Engineering Society (WES)

”The extreme social pressures that existed during the 1920’s and 1930’s throw into relief the singular achievements of the Women’s Engineering Society in its early years.The Society provided a rallying cry for independent-minded,visionary women who sought not only a good education and secure employment for themselves and others,but also a better,fairer world for all members of the female sex.”

Written with passion, dedication and immaculately researched, I had no idea what a debt current STEM students, engineers and women in general owed to these pioneers.

Fiercely intelligent whilst fighting discrimination in a patriarchal society, and their own personal struggles, the mother and daughter team of Katharine and Rachel Parsons along with Caroline Haslett, these were feminist suffragettes determined to make the world a fairer place for women by acknowldeging the talents they had in non-traditional women’s fields and raising each other women by giving them a platform.

Weaving personal history with societal change , this shows how the outrage of women who were told to, essentially, go back to the kitchen when their menfolk returned from war, they were unwilling and unable to give up the ground they had made whilst the First World War had raged. Pioneers of industrail change, all they were asking for was equality and respect for their talents.

This ranged from employment opportunities and fighting for equal wages, but also access to schools of higher learnign and valuing a work force which was underrepresented(and some may say still is). The working mother was seen as an oxymoron, and women who eschewed the traditional female pastime of motherhood and heterosexual relationships, soon fell foul of society’s moral police.This is escpecially true in the case of Rachel Parsons(the first woman to study Mechanical Science at Cambridge).

Beginning at the very conception of the WES in June 1919, this historical book follows the path of women who through marriage and family connections, were afforded privileges of class which they wanted available for all. They used position as leverage not only to advance the science of engineering but also mathematics and physics as their physical constructions became visible metaphors for their struggle for recogniton.

The 7 women who began this society did so in protest at a Parliamentary Bill proposing to stop women being employed as engineers. What they could not have envisaged was that this movement led to great advances for society as a whole and women’s rights in particular.

By setting the scene for the formation of the Society, we , the readers, get a whistle stop tour of the history of women in engineering up to that point-basically use women for as long as the war lasted. I had no idea of the use of Parliamentary Laws that allowed ‘dilution’ of engineering training, for example, to maximise the quick training of women to fill the gaps in the workforce left by the conscription of men.

”The women workers in the munitions factories forged a path for all women who came after them by proving that they could hold down difficult and demanding jobs,often in the face of great danger.”

Organising a women’s alliance, forged by discontent, they could use the force of their argument and their class position to lobby Parliament for equal pay and equal opportunities commensurate with other professions-inroads wer being made into medicine and law but it was still felt that engineering and mathematical areas were strictly men only.

The use of photography skills and knowledge of engineering led, for example, to the Parsons ancestor, Mary, being involved in the construction of the Leviathan of Parsonstown telescope which is still standing today.With such examples in their family, it is no wonder that Rachel was so keen to lead this society to adavance the cause of women in engineering.

Their battles to be seen and heard -or even allowed inside-Parliament is astonishing and on reflection, it really makes you feel how much is taken for granted today. These were the women who designed affordable houses, ran women only companies and raised each other through these processes. Their understanding of engineering led to innovation in household appliances,modifications of airplanes such as the Spitfire and recognition in honours lists for their contribution to society.

The 1805-2019 timeline at the back of the book shows just how instrumental these women were, how formidable they had to be to strive for their place in a male dominated profession and see their triumphs acknowledged. It is thanks to women like Rachel and Caroline that the women in STEM movement is advancing today, there are still massive gaps in training-I know of several female engineers who feel they have been ‘allowed’ to join the courses that they have begun at college and university because it ticks boxes on the equality measures. Yet in classes they are overlooked, mocked and are still the subject of sexist behaviour.It is incredibly disheartening for them to feel that they are token women after all this time.

This book is absolutely wonderfully written, it is a motivational recounting of a little known part of history and these women should be household names, held up as legendery pioneers and motivators to the female engineers,mechanics and inventors of tomorrow.

About the author…

Henrietta Heald is the author of ‘Magician Of The North’, a biography of William Armstrong, the great Victorian inventor, industrialist and visionary, which was shortlisted for the Portico Prize and the Best First Biography Prize. She has spoken about Armstrong and all his works on television and radio and at numerous events and festivals around the country.

Henrietta’s particular interests are British history, architecture, feminism and the countryside.

​She is now writing the extraordinary life of Rachel Parsons, an inspirational feminist pioneer who was violently killed in 1956 at her Newmarket racing stable.

Her most recent book, Jane Austen-Extraordinary Facts, was published in October 2016 by Rydon Publishing.

Twitter @henrietta999

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