Ada Lovelace Day - Beatrice "Tilly" Shilling

Inspired by my evening at the IET yesterday celebrating Ada Lovelace day (Who was Ada Lovelace?) I enjoyed watching some clever, funny and inspiring women who have science and technology at the heart of their worlds, comedians, robotocist and theramin player, cartoonist and games writer so  I wanted to include a brief post about a lady that I was told about many years ago when I made a foray into the engineering world.

Beatrice "Tilly" Shilling was born in 1909 in Hampshire and after studying Electrical Engineering and achieving and MSC in Mechanical engineering was employed by the Royal Aircraft establishment.  There are many useful references and blog and posts about her if you google her name but her main claim to fame was in producing a solution that helped to resolve some of the engine flooding and consequent cut out problems with the carburetors in Rolls Royce Merlin engines.  The issue caused the planes to stall when in combat situations and since the engines were used in early versions of fighter planes such as the Spitfire and Hurricane during World War 2, pilots were keen to have the problem resolved.

Beatrice also raced motorcycles throughout the 1930s (seen here on her Norton) and worked on many other engineering related projects after the War.  A pub in Hampshire is named the "Tilly" Shilling in her honour.