Hilda Hewlett
| Hilda Hewlett | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
17 February 1864 Vauxhall, London, England |
| Died | 21 August 1943 (aged 79) New Zealand |
| Occupation | Aviator and business entrepreneur |
| Spouse(s) | Maurice Hewlett (1888–1914) |
| Children | Pia (Hewlett) Richards, Francis Hewlett |
| Parent(s) | Louisa Hopgood, George William Herbert |
Hilda Beatrice Hewlett (17 February 1864 – 21 August 1943) was an early aviator and aviation entrepreneur. She was the first British woman to earn a pilot's licence. She founded and ran two related businesses: the first flying school in the United Kingdom, and a successful aircraft manufacturing business which produced more than 800 aeroplanes and employed up to 700 people. She later emigrated to New Zealand.
Hilda Beatrice Hewlett was born in Vauxhall, London on 17 February 1864 to Louisa Herbert née Hopgood and George William Herbert, a Church of England vicar. Hilda was one of nine siblings.
As a young woman she attended the National Art Training School in South Kensington. She specialised in three skills which served her well in her later aviation engineering career: woodwork, metalwork, and needlework. Her art was good enough to be exhibited. When she was 19 she visited Egypt with her parents. At the age of 21 she spent a year training as a nurse at a hospital in Berlin. She was an early bicycle and motor car enthusiast and participated in automobile rallies.
She married Maurice Henry Hewlett on 3 January 1888 in St Peter's Church, Vauxhall, where her father was the incumbent. The couple had two children, a daughter, Pia, and a son, Francis, but separated in 1914. Maurice Hewlett was unsympathetic to his wife's involvement in aviation and claimed, "Women will never be as successful in aviation as men. They have not the right kind of nerve."
Hewlett attended her first aviation meeting at Blackpool in 1909. Later that year, after adopting the pseudonym "Grace Bird", she travelled to the airfield at Mourmelon-le-Grand, France, to study aeronautics. She met aviation engineer Gustav Blondeau and they became business partners. Hewlett returned to England with a Farman III biplane, nicknamed the Blue Bird. In the summer of 1910 she and Blondeau opened the first flying school in the United Kingdom at the Brooklands motor-racing circuit at Weybridge, Surrey. Many people gained their first experience of flying at Hewlett and Blondeau's school, including Thomas Sopwith. Thirteen pupils graduated from the school in the year and a half it operated and, with a remarkable safety record for the time, there were no accidents.
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