Eily Keary

Eily Keary (later Eily Smith-Keary) (12 October 1892 – 19 October 1975) was a British naval architect, mechanical engineer and aeronautical engineer. She was one of the earliest female associates of the Institution of Naval Architects (now the Royal Institution of Naval Architects) and the first woman to have her papers given to that institution.

Early life and education She was born Eily Marguerite Leifchild Keary in London in 1892, the second of five daughters of Peter Keary, a newspaper proprietor and author renowned for his self-help books, and Jessie Richards, the daughter of a tailor. She was brought up in Wimbledon Park and went to Roedean School from 1908 to 1911. She went in 1921 to Newnham College, Cambridge, where she planned ‘to take the engineering course with her sister Elsie Keary and Rachel Parsons’. Eily Keary was the first woman to take honours in the mechanical sciences tripos in 1915, but as women were not then admitted to Cambridge degrees, she was unable to graduate at the time and received a titular degree in 1925. Keary was the first woman to co-author (with Baker) a paper read to the Institution of Naval Architects in 1918, entitled ‘The effect of the longitudinal motion of a ship on its statical transverse stability’. This groundbreaking work has apparently been cited as late as 1988. She was also the sole author of papers given on topics such as flying boats and rudder force. Although some reports state that she left the NPL in 1929 just before her marriage the following year, in the 1930s she jointly authored papers on subjects such as barges, the effect of immersion on propellers and steering ships, given to the RINA, the North East Coast Institution of Engineers and Ship Builders, and the Institution of Marine Engineers. She was later made a full member.

Personal life and death Keary married Frederick Edmund Smith-Keary in 1930. He was a marine engineer and had changed his name by deed poll from Smith to Smith-Keary, the same surname that Eily adopted after her marriage. They had a son, born in 1931, and lived in Sussex and later Tasmania.

Eily Smith-Keary died at her home in Liverpool in 1975.