Gertrude Bacon

Gertrude Bacon (19 April 1874 – 22 December 1949) was a British aeronautical pioneer. She achieved a considerable number of "firsts" for women in aeronautics, as well as making contributions in the areas of astronomy and botany. Bacon popularised aeronautics through her writing, and promoted both commercial and popular flying as fields for women.

Early life Gertrude Bacon was born in 1874, one of the three children of Gertrude (née Myers) and John Mackenzie Bacon (19 June 1846 – 26 December 1904). In 1876, the family moved from Cambridge to Cold Ash near Newbury in Berkshire. In 1880 her mother's mental health became poor following the birth of another child. Her father was an astronomer, aeronaut, and scientist who was a private tutor for University of Cambridge. He educated his children at home although Bacon also was briefly educated at The Maynard School, in Exeter.

She became her father's scientific collaborator in both astronomy and aeronautics. She was an original member of the British Astronomical Association (BAA) attending the inaugural meeting in 1890, and a member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

Astronomy She accompanied her father on BAA solar eclipse expeditions to observe total solar eclipses in Vadsø in Finnmark, Norway (9 August 1896), Buxar in India (22 January 1898), and Wadesboro, North Carolina (28 May 1900). A more hair-raising balloon flight occurred on 15 November 1899, when John Mackenzie Bacon and Gertrude Bacon ascended with Stanley Spencer to observe the Leonid meteor shower from above the cloud layer. Ten hours later, they landed near Neath in South Wales, a narrow escape from drifting out over the Atlantic although she broke her arm. She also flew with Douglas Graham Gilmour in a 'Big Bat' monoplane in 1910.

Bacon wrote several books about early aviation. She also gave public lectures, with opportunities becoming more numerous after her father's death in 1904. Initially she fulfilled his engagements but this enabled her to develop a reputation that secured future engagements. These became an important source of income. made the first discovery of Carex microglochin (bristle sedge) in Great Britain.

Personal life As well as following her interests in aeronautics, plants and astronomy, Bacon travelled in Britain and Europe. In her twenties, she cycled around Berkshire and Belgium. In 1900 she visited the Dolcoath copper and tin mine in Cornwall and saw the underground workings. She also visited the newly excavated tunnel of what became the underground Bakerloo Line in London in 1901. They initially live in Thirsk in Yorkshire. After her husband's death in 1934, she moved to join another brother, Frederick, who was the professor of engineering at University College, Swansea. They lived in the Swansea suburb of Sketty. After he died, she moved to Sway, Hampshire. She died on 22 December 1949. How Men Fly (1911), London Cassell, with 13 photographs and 6 diagrams All about flying (1915) Memories of land and sky (1928), London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, with 15 photographs

In 1900, she wrote about her visit to the Dolcoath copper and tin mine in Cornwall in Good Words 41 pages 341–8.