ELSIE GREGORY MACGILL was the first woman AME in Canada. She
graduated with a BSC in electrical engineering at the University of
Toronto (1927) completing her Master's degree in Aeronautical
Engineering at the University of Michigan in 1929.
Traditionally, Engineering was a male vocation, Elsie Macgill
opened many doors and opportunities for women in this area of
aviation in the years to come. She never actually piloted a plane,
but acquired hundreds of hours on all test flights and stress
analysis on proto-type aircraft in her work designing primary
trainer aircraft and their subsequent production in WWII
She was the daughter of James Henry MacGill, who practised law
in Vancouver for over forty years and Judge Helen Gregory MacGill,
who was the first woman jurist in B.C.and Judge of the Juvenile
Court in Vancouver for twenty-two years. Elsie definitely inherited
her mother's pioneering spirit as her career developed.
While studying at the University of Michigan, she was stricken
with acute infectious myelitis, a form of polio.
She wrote her final exams for her Master's degree from a
hospital bed. She spent a long time in a wheelchair, doing work on
aeronautical design and articles on aviation. She recovered
sufficiently to walk again with the aid of a cane, continuing her
post-graduate work in Boston.
"Since that time, Dr. MacGill has held several interesting and
important positions. For a time she was Assistant Engineer at
Fairchild Aircraft Limited in Montreal. Here she did the stress
analysis for the first all-metal prototype aircraft. In 1938, she
was the first woman elected to corporate membership in the
Engineering Institute of Canada. Around this time, she also changed
her job to become the Chief Aeronautical Engineer for Canada Car and
Foundry Company Limited in Montreal. Her great achievement here was
to design a special duty trainer for use in Mexico. The result was
the Maple Leaf Trainer II in which she flew as an observer on all
its test flights. It was built at Fort William, (Thunder Bay)
Ontario. Within only 8 months from the time the design was begun,
the aircraft received its Certificate of Airworthiness, Aerobatic
Category."
During WW II Dr. MacGill was put in charge of all engineering
work in connection
with the production by Canada Car and Foundry Co. Ltd. of the
famous Hawker Hurricane fighter aircraft for the British Government.
She was also responsible for the developement of fitting skis and
de-icing controls for winter operation. All test flights were
carried out under her direction. She was then responsible for the
production of Curtis-Wright Helldivers for the United States Navy.
She was the first woman to serve as Technical Advisor for ICAO and
later was Chairman of the Stress Analysis Committee of this part of
the United Nations.
In 1943, she set up her own business in Toronto, opening a
consulting office in aeronautical engineering and in that year she
married an aircraft associate, E.J. (Bill) Soulsby, Assistant
General Manager of Victory Aircraft Ltd. In 1946, she was the first
woman to serve as Technical Advisor for ICAO, where she helped to
draft International Air Worthiness regulations for the design and
production of Commercial aircraft. In 1947 she was Chairman of the
Stress Analysis Committee of this part of the United Nations. A
unique honour for Canada and for herself, she was the first and only
woman at that time to have chaired such a Committee.
In March 1953, the American Society of Women Engineers made
her an honorary member with a medal and names her "Woman Engineer of
the Year," in recognition of her meritorious contribution to
aeronautical engineering. It was the first time that the Award had
gone out of the United States.
Her many honours include:
