Hilda Hewlett

Hilda Hewlett (1864 to 1943) was the first woman in the United Kingdom to earn a pilot's licence and an early aviation entrepreneur. Born in London, she trained in woodwork, metalwork and needlework and was an early cycling and motoring enthusiast. In 1910, with the French engineer Gustave Blondeau, she attended the Farman flying school at Mourmelon-le-Grand and then opened the first flying school in England at Brooklands, where Thomas Sopwith was among the pupils. She received Royal Aero Club certificate number 122 on 29 August 1911. With Blondeau she founded Hewlett and Blondeau Limited, which built Farman, Caudron and Hanriot aircraft under licence, settled at the Omnia Works in Leagrave, Bedfordshire, and made more than 800 military aircraft in the First World War. She later emigrated to New Zealand, became first president of the Tauranga Aero and Gliding Club in 1932, and died in Tauranga in 1943.