Access, Influence, and Social Class: Women and British Aviation in the Interwar Years
On Thursday 18 March 2027 at 12pm, Sophy Higgins will analyse the role of women in developing aviation during the interwar period. This lecture will be hosted virtually via Crowdcast and livestreamed from the RAF Museum’s Midlands site.
Talk Outline
This lecture will analyse the role of women in developing aviation during the interwar period, paying particular attention to the role that social class played in governing access, and thus influence. The role that women played during this period has been obscured within historiography, whilst historians’ focus on class in this context has been largely limited to understanding the demography of pilots. This work builds on Sophy Antrobus’ examination of social networks and political lobbying amongst senior figures of the RAF to consider how women operated within these networks and enacted their own to politically, socially and economically influence aviation.
This lecture will draw on a range of case studies, including examining the class-based requirements of private flying; the class-based access to social and militarised organisations like the Emergency Service; and the role of senior wives as deputies, social organisers, and legacy protectors.
This lecture thus argues that it is only by understanding the access and influence of these women that we can begin to appreciate fully how the RAF survived in its infancy and developed into the service it is today. Moreover, it aims to show that women were always there, even outside of direct service, and thus better representation of them is needed to present a more rounded view of British air power in the interwar period and beyond.
Location
This hybrid lecture will be hosted in-person at the RAF Museum’s Midlands Site in the Lecture Theatre. Attendance in-person is free but registration is required via Digitickets.
Livestream
To attend virtually, register via Crowdcast.
About Sophy Higgins
Sophy Higgins is a third-year War Studies PhD Candidate at the Freeman Air and Space Institute (King’s College London) and the Royal Air Force Museum, funded by the London Arts and Humanities Partnership. Her doctoral research examines the class-based influence of women on the development of aviation in interwar Britain. Sophy’s work on aviation has seen her guest edit an ‘Airpower and Culture’ edition of the RAF Historical Society’s journal, organise an air and space postgraduate conference at KCL, and most recently complete a placement with Kingston Museum to research and reinterpret their aviation collection. Sophy was also the 2025 recipient of the RAF Historical Society’s Henry Probert Bursary.