Why and by whom was the UK’s Women’s Engineering Society – www.wes.org.uk – founded in 1919 – the first such society in the world?

How has this Society survived to its centenary while being so little known in British society, while its better-known sibling organisation, the Electrical Association for Women, ceased operations a generation ago?

The presenters will discuss these historical questions both in the broader context of women’s increased employment in skilled technical professions after the First World War, and in relation to present-day debates concerning the low participation of UK women in engineering (a lower rate than any other European nation).

This talk draws on the speakers’ work on the AHRC-funded ‘Electrifying Women’ Project – electrifyingwomen.org.