Dorothy Spicer

Dorothy Norman Pearse née Spicer (31 July 1908 – 23 December 1946) was an English aviator, and the first woman to gain an advanced qualification in aeronautical engineering.

Early life Dorothy Spicer was born on 31 July 1908 at Hadley Wood, Middlesex, the only daughter of Hilda Mary Sisterson and stockbroker Norman Spicer (d. 1936). and studied at University College, London. Here she met Pauline Gower who was studying for her commercial pilot's licence and who became her friend.

In 1931, they started a business together. Gower was licensed to carry passengers for 'hire or reward', and Spicer was qualified as a ground engineer and held an 'A' (private) pilot's licence. They hired a plane and later bought a Gypsy Moth for the business, but struggled to make a living so decided to join the Crimson Fleet air circus and later the British Hospitals' air pageant. Spicer had joined the Women's Engineering Society (WES) in 1932 in their Aeronautical Section, and is described as Ground Engineer to Miss Gower. The WES Journal The Woman Engineer for June 1933 records that Spicer and Gower were 'touring the country with a "circus" which is giving air pageants in two hundred towns this summer in aid of British Hospitals'. Mollie Olney, Dorothy Spicer, Mrs Victor Bruce, Amy Johnson, Lady Lillian Shelmerdine, Mrs Pender Chalmers & Jim Mollison at Atlantic Park Southampton in 1932. Spicer studied for the Ground Engineers' (AME)'B' licence during this time, despite the fact that institutions offering advanced courses were restricted to men. She persuaded the manufacturers of the Spartan plane she and Gower flew in the circus to allow her to undertake the necessary practical and theoretical training at their workshops and earned her Ground Engineers' 'B' licence, becoming the first woman in the world to do so. She also held a Ground Engineers' 'C' licence, the second British woman to achieve this (her friend and fellow pilot Amy Johnson was the first)

In September 1937, at the Women's Engineering Society conference, Spicer read a paper on the "Selection and Treatment of Steels for Aero-Engines".

In 1938 she accepted a position with the Air Registration Board in London, becoming the first woman in the British Empire to receive a technical appointment in civil aviation.

In late 1940, Dorothy took on flying work as an air observer and research assistant with the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, and became involved in the development of a variety of new aircraft types and items of equipment.

Personal life On 2 March 1938, she became engaged to Flight Lieutenant Richard Pearse. They married on 26 April 1938 at Holy Trinity Brompton with Pauline Gower as chief bridesmaid. Their only child, Patricia Mary, was born at Farnham Common in Surrey in May 1939.