Name Pauline Gower | Died 1947 | |
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Education Beechwood Sacred Heart School | ||
Pauline Mary de Peauly Gower Fahie (22 July 1910 – 2 March 1947) was a British pilot and writer who established the women's branch of the Air Transport Auxiliary during the Second World War.
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Early life and education
Daughter of MP Sir Robert Gower, and educated at Beechwood Sacred Heart School, she first flew with Alan Cobham and was fascinated by flying. In August 1931 she established a joy-riding and air taxi service in Kent. In 1932 to support British Hospitals, Gower toured the country with an Air Circus, giving air pageants in 200 hundred towns. She also wrote for Girl's Own Paper and Chatterbox and published a collection of poetry, Piffling Poems for Pilots, in 1934. As a writer she was acquainted with W. E. Johns whose character Worrals was based on herself as well as Amy Johnson.
Engineering work
In 1935 she was appointed as a council member for the Women's Engineering Society. She chaired a meeting on "The History of British Airships", where Mr. M. Langley championed the airboat and Hon. A. F. de Moleyns the airship. In 1936, Gower was the first woman to be awarded the Air Ministry's Second Class Navigator's Licence. Later that year, Gower and her colleague Dorothy Spicer ('daring aeronauts') presented a technical paper at the Women's Engineering Society Annual General Meeting on the treatment of metals for aircraft engineers. In 1938, she was appointed a civil defence commissioner in London with the Civil Air Guard. That year her work on women in aviation—Women with Wings—was published. On the outbreak of the Second World War, Gower made use of her high-level connections to propose the establishment of a women's section in the new Air Transport Auxiliary —the ATA would be responsible for ferrying military aircraft from factory or repair facility to storage unit or operational unit—to the authorities.
Gower was appointed as the head of the women's branch, and commenced the selection and testing of women pilots, the first eight being appointed by the ATA on 1 January 1940. Early members included ice-hockey international Mona Friedlander, Margaret Fairweather (Lord Runciman's daughter) and former ballet dancer Rona Rees. Later members included Amy Johnson and former Olympic skier Lois Butler. Gower received the MBE for her services in 1942 and received a Harmon Trophy award posthumously in 1950.
Personal life
Gower married Wing Commander Bill Fahie in 1945. She died in 1947 giving birth to twin sons, who survived.
