Winifred Crossley Fair

Winifred Crossley Fair
Born
Winifred Mary Harrisson

(1906-01-09)January 9, 1906
St Neots, Cambridgeshire
DiedMarch 27, 1984(1984-03-27) (aged 78)
NationalityBritish
OccupationPilot
SpousePeter Fair

Winifred Crossley (9 January 1906 – 27 March 1984) was an aviator who was the first woman to be checked out on a Hurricane fighter. She was one of the First Eight, the initial group of women pilots to join the Air Transport Auxiliary.

Early life

Winifred Mary Harrisson was born on 9 January 1906 in St Neots, Cambridgeshire, to Winifred Edith and Ernest Henry Harrisson, a general medical practitioner.[1] She had a twin sister Daphne Louisa, an older brother John and a younger brother George.[2] In the summer of 1926 she married James Francis Crossley.[3]

Career

The Air Transport Auxiliary, 1939–1945. C389

Winifred "Winnie" Crossley was a pilot before the start of the Second World War. She had worked by towing banners for aerial advertising for five years. She had also been a stunt pilot in an air circus. In 1935, her father delivered and cared for the St Neots Quads, the first British quadruplets to survive. The babies needed special care and delivery of human milk from a London hospital, and Crossley was involved in "making arrangements to fly the milk from Hendon, landing on the common near St. Neots."[4]

She was one of the first women (the "First Eight") to join the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), alongside Joan Hughes, Margaret Cunnison, Mona Friedlander, Gabrielle Patterson, Marion Wilberforce, Margaret Fairweather and Rosemary Rees, under the command of Pauline Gower. She served from 1940 to 1945. She became second in command at Ferry pool No. 5.[5]

By 1940 Crossley was separated from her husband and rented a house called Abdale near the ATA Hatfield base, where she accommodated other ATA pilots and held social gatherings for them.[6] She later married Peter Fair (1906–1961)[7] an airline captain who was the head of BOAC's Bahamas Airways based in Nassau.[8][6][9][10][11]

Winifred Crossley Fair died on 27 March 1984.[12]

Legacy

A bus company in Hatfield named its eight buses after the First Eight Tiger Moth pilots in the ATA, including Rees.[13]

Fourteen years after her death in 2008, the fifteen surviving women members of the ATA (and 100 surviving male pilots) were given a special award by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.[14]

References

  1. ^ "1939 England and Wales Register". www.ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 2023-01-01.
  2. ^ "1911 England Census for Huntingdonshire, St Neots". www.ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 2023-01-01.
  3. ^ "England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005". www.ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 2023-01-01.
  4. ^ The King's Bounty for Quadruplets – Milk Supply by Aeroplane: Times Newspaper, 3 Dec 1935
  5. ^ Poad, Richard (2020-01-14). "ATA's first 8 women pilots". Air Transport Auxiliary. Retrieved 2020-12-30.
  6. ^ a b Curtis, L. (2004). Lettice Curtis: Her Autobiography. Red Kite. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-9546201-1-0. Retrieved 2020-03-04.
  7. ^ "Pennsylvania, U.S., Death Certificates, 1906-1968". www.ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 2023-01-02.
  8. ^ "ATA First Eight". British Air Transport Auxiliary. Retrieved 2020-03-04.
  9. ^ Veerasamy, Sonya (2019-02-07). "Inspirational ATA Female Pilots Honoured". Women in Transport. Retrieved 2020-03-04.
  10. ^ Lee, Adrian (2012-06-20). "Heroism of the spitfire girls". Express.co.uk. Retrieved 2020-03-04.
  11. ^ McDonough, Yona Zeldis (2012-04-30). "The Women's RAF". Air & Space Magazine. Retrieved 2020-03-04.
  12. ^ "England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995". www.ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 2023-01-02.
  13. ^ "Inspirational ATA Female Pilots Honoured". Women in Transport. Retrieved 2020-03-01.
  14. ^ "Britain's FEMALE Spitfire pilots to receive badge of courage at last". Evening Standard. 2008-02-21. Retrieved 2020-03-01.