Florence Violet McKenzie

Florence Violet McKenzie OBE
McKenzie in her WESC uniform, ca. 1940
Born	Florence Violet Granville 28 September 1890 or 1892 Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia
Died	23 May 1982
Other names	"Mrs Mac", Wallace
Alma mater	Sydney Technical College
Occupation	Electrical engineer
Known for	founder of the Women's Emergency Signalling Corps

Florence Violet McKenzie OBE (née Granville; 28 September 1890 or 1892 – 23 May 1982), affectionately known as "Mrs Mac", was Australia's first female electrical engineer, founder of the Women's Emergency Signalling Corps (WESC) and lifelong promoter for technical education for women. She campaigned successfully to have some of her female trainees accepted into the all-male Navy, thereby originating the Women's Royal Australian Naval Service (WRANS). Some 12,000 servicemen passed through her signal instruction school in Sydney, acquiring skill in Morse code and visual signalling (flag semaphore and International Code of Signals).

She set up her own electrical contracting business in 1918, and apprenticed herself to it, in order to meet the requirements of the Diploma in Electrical Engineering at Sydney Technical College and in 1922 she was the first Australian woman to take out an amateur radio operator's license. Through the 1920s and 1930s, her "Wireless Shop" in Sydney's Royal Arcade was renowned amongst Sydney radio experimenters and hobbyists. She founded The Wireless Weekly in 1922, established the Electrical Association for Women in 1934, and wrote the first "all-electric cookbook" in 1936. She also corresponded with Albert Einstein in the postwar years.

Florence Violet McKenzie was born Florence Violet Granville on 28 September 1890 in Melbourne, although before her marriage to Cecil McKenzie at the age of 34, she was known as Violet Wallace. Other sources cite 1892 as her birth year. Wallace was her stepfather George's surname; he was a commercial traveller. When Violet was an infant, the family moved to Austinmer, south of Sydney.