Constance Leathart

Constance Ruth Leathart (7 December 1903 – 4 November 1993) was a British female pilot who flew Royal Air Force aircraft on transit flights in World War Two in the Air Transport Auxiliary.

Early life Constance Ruth Leathart was born on 7 December 1903 in Low Fell, County Durham into a wealthy family. She was the only child of Janet Ruth Grant (née Tennant) and Thomas Headley Leathart. When she received her flying licence in 1927, Leathart became the first British female pilot outside London, and one of the first 20 overall.

She started an aircraft repair business, Cramlington Aircraft, with Walter Runciman, later Viscount Runciman, participated successfully in air races with him, and was one of a group of flying socialites. and was the first in Great Britain to design and fly a glider.

Aircraft owned: She achieved the ATA rank of Flight Captain, flying heavy bombers as well as fighters to airfields in many countries.

Later life After the war ended she became a United Nations special representative to the Greek island of Icaria and received an award of merit from the International Union for Child Welfare. She reluctantly gave up flying in 1958 and retired to a farm in Little Bavington, Northumberland, where she cared for rescued donkeys.

Leathart is buried at Thockrington church; she had requested her grave not be marked, but friends placed as a marker the stone she used to step into her unheated swimming pool every day regardless of weather.

Northumberland Archives hold a collection of her papers including a number of photograph albums which record her adventures in aviation from the 1920s to the 1940s.