Caroline Haslett

Dame Caroline Harriet Haslett DBE, JP (17 August 1895 – 4 January 1957) was an English electrical engineer, electricity industry administrator and champion of women's rights. She was the first secretary of the Women's Engineering Society and the founder and editor of its journal, The Woman Engineer. She was co-founder, alongside Laura Annie Willson and with the support of Margaret, Lady Moir, of the Electrical Association for Women, which pioneered such 'wonders', as they were described in contemporary magazines, as the All-Electric House in Bristol in 1935. She became the first director of the Electrical Association for Women in 1925. Her chief interest was in harnessing the benefits of electrical power to emancipate women from household chores, so that they could pursue their own ambitions outside the home. In the early 1920s, few houses had electric light or heating, let alone electrical appliances; the National Grid was not yet in existence. Early life Born in Worth (now part of Crawley, West Sussex), Caroline Haslett was the eldest daughter of Robert Haslett, a railway signal fitter and activist for the co-operative movement, and his wife, Caroline Sarah, formerly Holmes. After attending school in Haywards Heath, she undertook a business secretarial course in London, where she also joined the Suffragette movement. Through a contact of her mother's she took up employment with the Cochran boiler Company as a clerk and joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Transferring to the Cochran workshops during World War I she acquired basic engineering training in London and in Annan, Dumfriesshire; from that time she became a pioneer for women in the electrical and professional world. Career In 1919 Haslett left Cochran's to become the first secretary of the Women's Engineering Society (WES) and first editor of The Woman Engineer magazine, which she continued to edit until 1932.