Constance Leathart

Costance (Connie) Leathart was a British female pilot who flew Royal Air Force aircraft on transit flights in World War Two in the Air Transport Auxiliary. She was born into a wealthy north east family who had amassed their fortune as owners of lead works on Tyneside.

Leathart started flying lessons in 1925 at Newcastle Aero Club. She wrote her name as "C. R. Leathart" on the application form, and was accepted before the club realised her gender, at a time when flying was almost exclusively the preserve of rich young men. When she received her flying licence in 1927, Leathart became the first British female pilot outside London, and one of the first 20 overall.

Leathart amassed aircraft design and mechanical skills and set up an aircraft repair business, Cramlington Aircraft, with her friend Walter Runciman, who would later become Viscount Runciman. They were part a group of wealthy 'jet set' who took part in air races around the world. She was one of the first women to fly over the Alps, in a de Havilland Tiger Moth and was the first in Great Britain to design and fly a glider.

When World War II broke out, she volunteered as one of the first members of the Air Transport Auxiliary, female pilots who delivered aircraft from the manufacturers. She achieved the rank of Flight Captain, flying fighters and heavy bombers to airfields arround the world. After the war ended, she became a United Nations special representative to the Greek island of Icaria and received an award of merit from the International Union for Child Welfare. She reluctantly gave up flying in 1958 and retired to Little Bavington, Northumberland, where she ran a small farm of sheep, cows and rescued donkeys.  Constance Leathart died in 1993 and was buried at the St Aidan's Church in Thockrington.