To coincide with International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, maritime historian Dr. Jo Stanley looks at the contribution of the Institution’s women members and the challenges faced by women in the profession
‘What’s the use of nosing round seeking out anomalous women in old documents?’ That’s what any responsible historian worries about. Is their work about long-gone misogyny or male ally-ship of any relevance? Why not just have a nice cup of tea and accept that there were once wasteful sexist times in most industries and professions, including naval architecture?
The answer is ‘because knowing the past could help shape a fairer future. Maybe.‘
Nearly seven years ago I was pouring over RINA’s Transactions trying to track down the reported sightings of rare women designing ships. I was particularly fascinated by an overlooked press baron’s daughter with the unlikely name of Eily Keary. There she was in 1919, recorded as one of the first three women to join the Institution of Naval Architects, along with Blanche Thornycroft and Rachel Parsons.
The invisible future
Natalie Desty, inaugural winner of the Eily Keary Award. Source: STEM Returners
I had no idea that RINA would name a prize after her. Nor did I imagine that someone would have invented Zoom, and that I’d be using it as a way to meet two of the women who’d won the Eily Keary Award: Natalie Desty, the 2019 prize-winner, and Cathy Ingram, who won it in 2020. Their successors were Dr Ralitsa Mihaylova in 2021 and Sue Kingswood in 2022, the first woman to receive it in person, when Covid’s waning allowed that.
The Eily Keary Award ‘recognises the contribution made by an individual, organisation or part of an organisation to increasing equality, diversity and inclusion in their sector of the maritime industry.’
Sue Kingswood (centre) was the first Eily Keary winner to receive her award in person
The real Eily
It’s very rewarding for historians to see the future actually changing because of something you found out about and made public: Eily’s progress. And it was fun to tell Cathy and Natalie the story of the real woman behind the name on their award. She lived from 1892-1975 and was in RINA all her adult life. I’ve stood on the old Wimbledon Park doorstep that Eily daily crossed; her relatives have talked to me; I’ve hobnobbed in the Liverpool club where she was the first woman ever to give a paper on naval architecture.
And I’ve shared plans for a blue commemorative plaque to her. She probably faced more hardships than the winners of the award named after her. Women were so unusual. But WW1 production needs, and Edwardian chivalry, helped naturalise her entry into the industry.
Not returning but…
Natalie, the first winner, and I found it fascinating to talk about what her own organisation, STEM Returners, could have done for Eily and others, had it existed earlier. In 1930 Eily married Peter Smith, a seagoing senior marine engineer for Furness Withy. They’d met during sea trials. She resigned from the National Physical Laboratory on marriage, as women were expected to do. The following year they had a son. She kept up her RINA membership, but never went back into the industry.
Natalie’s work is about ensuring there is never such wastage again. She would have organised a program to help Eily return to work and carry on contributing.
And the predecessors
We all stand on the shoulders of giants, and sometimes those giants were women. They have made a difference down the generations to women in RINA now. Eily Keary was aided in her progress by the Lawrence sisters who founded Roedean School, which encouraged so many women to dare, as Eily did. Henry Sidgwick, who founded Newnham College for women, and Eily’s Cambridge professor, Bertram Hopkinson, led to her training.
And Katharine Furse inadvertently smoothed the path for Cathy Ingram. Dame Katharine, the first director of the Women’s Royal Naval Service 1917-1919, and Britain’s first honorary woman admiral, helped develop the Girl Guides and Sea Rangers. Two of Cathy’s local Guide leaders helped inspire her seawards.
Tens of thousands of girls understood they could, actually, access the maritime industry; it wasn’t just a boy’s world.
Dr Jo Stanley
Dr. Jo Stanley, FRHistS, Assoc RINA, is co-author of RINA’s Women in the Institution 1919-2019, an account of the contributions and experiences of the Institution’s past and present members. To download a copy please click on the below link:
https://rina.org.uk/publications/supplements-archive/
