Marthe Niel (29 December 1878 – 18 November 1928) was a French

aviator An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...

, becoming the second woman in the world to earn an aeroplane pilot's licence on 19 September 1910.

Early life

Niel was born Marie-Ange Denieul in Le Cannée, a hamlet in the commune of

Paimpont Paimpont (; ; Gallo: ''Penpont'') is a commune in the Ille-et-Vilaine department in Brittany in northwestern France. The name is a compound of Old Breton ''pen'' "head" and the Latin borrowing ''pont'' "bridge" and is first attested in the 9th ...

Ille-et-Vilaine Ille-et-Vilaine (; br, Il-ha-Gwilen) is a department of France, located in the region of Brittany in the northwest of the country. It is named after the two rivers of the Ille and the Vilaine. It had a population of 1,079,498 in 2019.

. She was the daughter of Joachim Denieul, a farm worker, and his wife Marie-Joseph Saget. On 9 May 1900, she married Pierre Firmin Fontalbat, a wine merchant, after which she worked as a cook. They divorced on 4 February 1904.

Career as an aviator

In April 1910, she was admitted to the piloting school founded by aeroplane builder

Paul Koechlin The Koechlin family is an Alsatian family which acquired its wealth in the textile industry and became leading industrialists and politicians of the region. Early family history The first traces of the family can be found in 1440, when Johann Koe ...

Mourmelon-le-Grand Mourmelon-le-Grand () is a commune in the Marne department in north-eastern France. Population Camp de Châlons The ''camp de Châlons'', also known as ''camp de Mourmelon'', is a military camp of circa 10,000 hectares near Mourmelon-le-Grand ...

. On 19 September 1910, after flying a Koechlin monoplane, she received Licence No. 226 from the

Aéro-Club de France The Aéro-Club de France () was founded as the Aéro-Club on 20 October 1898 as a society 'to encourage aerial locomotion' by Ernest Archdeacon, Léon Serpollet, Henri de la Valette, Jules Verne and his wife, André Michelin, Albert de Dion, ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Niel, Marthe 1878 births 1928 deaths People from Ille-et-Vilaine Aviation pioneers French aviators French women aviators