Gladys Sandford

Gladys Sandford (née Coates, 4 March 1891 – 24 October 1971) was an Australian-New Zealand pioneering driver and aviator. She was the first woman in New Zealand to earn a pilot's licence.

Early life Sandford was born at Summer Hill, Sydney, to Oswald Coates and Valerie Albine, née Lassau. Sandford's father had immigrated from England, and her mother was from South Australia. By 1896 the family had moved to Auckland, New Zealand. She learned to drive in record time, and could dismantle then reassemble car engines – a skill that proved useful in her service abroad.

In 1914, World War I broke out, and Henning, and two of Sandford's brothers, enlisted in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. Sandford tried to enlist as a driver, but was turned down. Instead, she joined the New Zealand Volunteer Sisterhood and travelled to Egypt at her own cost in 1916. She worked as an ambulance driver for a hospital in Giza. She was promoted to head lady driver, and after the war finished she stayed on in England to lead the motor transport division at the New Zealand military hospital outside London. In December 1925 she became the first woman in New Zealand to gain a pilot's licence at Wigram, Christchurch on 22 December 1925.

In December 1928, in Sydney, she divorced, Frederick Esk Sandford, only days before he died after a car accident near Glenrowan, Victoria.

In 1929 Sandford settled in Sydney. During World War II she worked as a censor for the Army; she also founded the Women's Transport Corps, a group of almost 400 members who underwent training in driving and car maintenance.