Enid Gordon-Gallien (9 November 1885 – 18 June 1931), was a British adventurer and pilot who was awarded the Back Award in 1930 for her expedition in

Tanganyika Tanganyika may refer to: Places * Tanganyika Territory (1916–1961), a former British territory which preceded the sovereign state * Tanganyika (1961–1964), a sovereign state, comprising the mainland part of present-day Tanzania * Tanzania Main ...

Life

Enid Gordon-Gallien was the wife of Captain Gordon Gallien, an engineer of the

Anglo-Persian Oil Company The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was a British company founded in 1909 following the discovery of a large oil field in Masjed Soleiman, Persia (Iran). The British government purchased 51% of the company in 1914, gaining a controlling number ...

. With him she had travelled extensively. She had been involved in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

in both France and Egypt. Gordon-Gallien was a member of the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

. She studied with Mr Reeves of the Royal Geographical Society in 1925 and in 1928 and she studied field astronomy and surveying. At that point she began investigating what expeditions she could run. The president of the society, Colonel Sir Charles Close, proposed the as then unmapped

Kalambo Falls The Kalambo Falls on the Kalambo River is a single-drop waterfall on the border of Zambia and Rukwa Region, Tanzania at the southeast end of Lake Tanganyika. The falls are some of the tallest uninterrupted falls in Africa (after South Africa's ...

. Prior to this, Gordon-Gallien had driven her car across the desert to

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

as well as becoming shipwrecked on the

Barrier Reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups. Co ...

while journeying to join her husband in

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and eas ...

. Gordon-Gallien began at Dar-es-Salaam on 15 June 1928. Other members of the party were J. W. Cornwall, a surveyor, and Colin Rose, a geologist. The expedition was written up and presented to the society in 1929. As a result of her work on the expedition, Gordon-Gallien was awarded the Back Award in 1930. Gordon-Gallien gained her aviators certificate in August 1930 through

National Flying Services National Flying Services Ltd was a company aiming to create and manage a large number of airfields and flying clubs around Britain. It relied on government subsidy, and it collapsed when the subsidy was withdrawn in 1934, because the aims had not ...

Hanworth Aerodrome London Air Park, also known as Hanworth Air Park, was a grass airfield in the grounds of Hanworth Park House, operational 1917–1919 and 1929–1947. It was on the southeastern edge of Feltham, now part of the London Borough of Hounslow. In th ...

. However, she was killed in a plane crash, as a passenger, when flying with her friend and co-owner of the plane, the noted pilot

Sicele O'Brien Sicele O'Brien (1 April 1887 – 18 June 1931) was one of Ireland's pioneering pilots. She was one of three women who raced and set records in Europe and Africa in the 1920s. She was the second woman in Britain or Ireland to get a commercial pi ...

on 18 June 1931.
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References and sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gordon-Gallien, Enid 1885 births 1931 deaths British explorers Date of birth unknown Aviators killed in aviation accidents or incidents in England