Mary Sudbury

Mary Sudbury (1934 - 7 January 2018), was a woman engineer who worked in the 1950s wind tunnel research team, developing the supersonic airliner, Concorde, and was an Edinburgh Christian charity worker.

Life and work Born Mary Johnson, in 1934 in Eccles, Manchester; her father Thomas was an Agecroft colliery worker and mother Winifred (née Warrington) was an elocution teacher and comedy actor. Sudbury grew up with air raids, city smog, and meeting German POWs and had a brother, Peter. She attended Pendleton High School, did not enjoy art classes, but she played hockey for the county. Her education continued at Westfield College, University of London where she graduated in mathematics in 1954. One wind tunnel was specifically designed to test supersonic aircraft, up to Mach 1.2, part of Concorde development project, and is now a listed building.

Developing the shape of the supersonic aircraft was a 'staggeringly bold aerodynamic adventure'. The models of the tunnel development are held in the Science Museum. A video of the output (after Sudbury's time as it refers to punchcards) shows the complexity of the building and the data she had to work with.

In 1959 she married George Sudbury. But as the only female on the wind tunnel engineering testing team, despite earlier female pioneers like Frances Bradfield, and contemporary German scientist Johanna Weber at RAE, Sudbury became frustrated at being asked by a new manager for example, to 'pour the coffee' at visitor meetings. Sudbury left RAE upon the birth of her first child.