Sheila Leather (17 January 1898 - 27 January 1983) was an engineer, business owner and president of the

Women's Engineering Society The Women's Engineering Society is a United Kingdom professional learned society and networking body for women engineers, scientists and technologists. It was the first professional body set up for women working in all areas of engineering, pred ...

in 1950–51.

Early life

Sheila Leather was born in

Birkenhead Birkenhead (; cy, Penbedw) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liver ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

on 17 January 1898 to Annie (née Lyon) and

John Walter Leather John Walter Leather (26 December 1860 – 14 November 1934) was an agricultural chemist who worked in India as the first Imperial Agricultural Chemist at the Imperial Agricultural Research Institute in Pusa, Bihar. Appointed in 1892, he worked on ...

, an

analytical chemist Analytical chemistry studies and uses instruments and methods to separate, identify, and quantify matter. In practice, separation, identification or quantification may constitute the entire analysis or be combined with another method. Separati ...

. She had two sisters, Alice Muriel born in 1889 and Wenonah Hardwick born in 1890. Her father was the head of the chemical department at the

Imperial Agricultural Research Institute The Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), commonly known as the Pusa Institute, is India's national institute for agricultural research, education and Agricultural extension, extension. The name Pusa Institute is derived from the fact t ...

established in 1904 at

Pusa ''Pusa'' is a genus of the earless seals, within the family Phocidae. The three species of this genus were split from the genus ''Phoca'', and some sources still give ''Phoca'' as an acceptable synonym for ''Pusa''. The three species in this ge ...

Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Be ...

, India. Leather was a boarder at Liverpool High School for Girls in 1911, and it is assumed both her older sisters were in India with their father, as Alice Muriel married Claud Mews Mackenzie Hutchinson in 1914. Her other sister Wenonah Hardwick married

Eric Cecil Ansorge Sir Eric Cecil Ansorge, CSI, CIE, FRES (6 March 1887 - 3 January 1977) was a British Indian Civil Service officer who worked in Orissa and Bihar in India. He was also a keen amateur entomologist, writing an official report on silk industry along w ...

in 1915. Both weddings took place in Pusa.

Career

Before the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Leather was a Physical Training Lecturer at Hockerill Teacher Training College,

Bishop Stortford Bishop's Stortford is a historic market town in Hertfordshire, England, just west of the M11 motorway on the county boundary with Essex, north-east of central London, and by rail from Liverpool Street station. Stortford had an estimated p ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

, having trained in the revolutionary Bergman-Osterberg method of exercise for women, probably at Madame Bergman-Osterberg's Dartford College. Leather was an amateur engineer in 1940 and was one of the first women trainees to attend the courses run by the

held at the Beaufoy Institute in Lambeth to prepare women for engineering war work. She showed such aptitude at the

Hawker aircraft Hawker Aircraft Limited was a British aircraft manufacturer that was responsible for some of the most famous products in British aviation history. History Hawker had its roots in the aftermath of the First World War, which resulted in the bank ...

factory where she was sent (working on

Typhoons A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere. This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, and is the most active tropical cyclone basin on Earth, accounting for a ...

and

Hawker Tempest The Hawker Tempest is a British fighter aircraft that was primarily used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the Second World War. The Tempest, originally known as the ''Typhoon II'', was an improved derivative of the Hawker Typhoon, intended to ...

s) that she was promoted from the shopfloor to more responsible posts in production planning. In March 1943 she was recruited by the UK government's Ministry of Labour to be one of its Women Technical Officers advising on the employment of women in heavy industry, and was posted for some time to Newcastle upon Tyne. She went on to train others in people management and supervision skills, being appointed a TWI (Training Within Industry) Trainer in 1944. Along with another WES member,

Verena Holmes Verena Winifred Holmes (23 June 1889 – 20 February 1964) was an English mechanical engineer and multi-field inventor, the first woman member elected to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (1924) and the Institution of Locomotive Engineers ...

, Leather set up a small engineering company, Holmes & Leather Ltd, in Gillingham,

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

in 1946 employing only women to make small paper-cutting guillotines that could be used safely in schools. Both of her sisters had invested in the company.

Women's Engineering Society

She joined the

(WES) in 1941 and became a regular contributor to The Woman Engineer magazine, and taking part in a broadcast to America about her work in 1942. She was elected to the WES Council in September 1942 and Vice President alongside Elsie Eleanor Verity in 1947. In 1950-51 Leather was elected president of the Women's Engineering Society succeeding Frances Heywood in the role. She campaigned for equal pay in the sector and visited schools to encourage girls to take up engineering as a profession. In 1950, she,

Winifred Hackett Winifred Hackett (2 October 1906 – 3 June 1994) was an electrical and aeronautical engineer who worked on guided weapon systems and the DEUCE computer. Early life and education Hackett was born in Kings Norton, an area of Birmingham on 2 O ...

and

Ira Rischowski Ira (Irene) Rischowski (1 August 1899 – 1989) was one of Germany's first female engineers and active in the German anti-Nazi resistance group Neu Beginnen before fleeing to Britain. In the UK she became a member of the Women's Engineering Socie ...

published a report on equal pay for women in engineering, which concluded that there was "''no justification for lower salary scales for women''". In 1951 she spoke on training in industry at the conference of the Women's Engineering Society, on BBC

Woman's Hour ''Woman's Hour'' is a radio magazine programme broadcast in the United Kingdom on the BBC Light Programme, BBC Radio 2, and later BBC Radio 4. It has been on the air since 1946. History Created by Norman Collins and originally presented by A ...

and joined the equal pay committee of the British Federation of Business and Professional Women, thenbeing elected Vice Chair of the organisation. Leather hosted

Beatrice Hicks Beatrice Alice Hicks (January 2, 1919 – October 21, 1979) was an American engineer, the first woman engineer to be hired by Western Electric, and both co-founder and first president of the Society of Women Engineers. Despite entering the ...

, President of the recently formed American

Society of Women Engineers The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) is an international not-for-profit educational and service organization. Founded in 1950 and headquartered in the United States, the Society of Women Engineers is a major advocate for women in engineering and ...

when she visited the

Festival of Britain The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. Historian Kenneth O. Morgan says the Festival was a "triumphant success" during which people: ...

. Leather was succeeded as WES President by Ella Mary Collin.

Later life

In retirement she enjoyed acting as a volunteer guide in

Lincoln Cathedral Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln Minster, or the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln and sometimes St Mary's Cathedral, in Lincoln, England, is a Grade I listed cathedral and is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Lincoln. Constructio ...

. Sheila Leather died aged 85, at the

Caenby Caenby is a hamlet and civil parish in the West Lindsey Non-metropolitan district, district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated north from the city and county town of Lincoln, Lincolnshire, Lincoln. The population is included in the civil ...

Nursing Home in

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

on 27 January 1983.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leather, Sheila 1898 births 1983 deaths Women engineers Women's Engineering Society People from Birkenhead 20th-century British businesswomen