House Leader - Molly Hourihan 11HL

House Champion - Nina Baker (see below)

Hilda Lyon - Hilda has a unique connection to the school as she was in the first group of pupils when Beverley High School first opened in 1908. She learnt to love mathematics and pursued this further studying it at Newnham College, Cambridge in 1918 – at a time when the university noted the exam results as equivalent to the male only agreed but did not award actual degrees to women until 1947. After graduating, Lyon took an Air Ministry course in aeroplane stress-analysis and then obtained a job as a technical assistant.  Around 1922, Lyon was admitted as an Associate Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. From 1925 onwards, she was a member of technical staff at the Royal Airship Works in Cardington, helping to develop the R101 rigid airship through her work on aerodynamics. With a length of 731ft, the R101 was the largest flying machine ever built. Prior to its first flight, Lyon wrote to her brother: “When are you coming to see the R101? Hope that it’s a north wind when I get my first flight so that I can persuade them to fly over Market Weighton

Hilda Lyon overview - (by Miss Brownell) https://youtu.be/rJmAH0dSLIs

House Champion - Dr Nina Baker

Dr Nina Baker has had a varied career, having become a merchant navy deck officer on leaving school and later taken an engineering design degree in her 30s, from the University of Warwick. She then gained a PhD in concrete durability from the University of Liverpool. She has lived with her family in Glasgow since 1989, working variously as a materials lecturer in further education and as a university research administrator and, until 2017, as an elected city councillor. Now retired from all that, her interest in promoting STEM careers for girls has led her to become an independent researcher, mainly specialising in the history of women in engineering. She was Deacon of the Incorporation of Hammermen of Glasgow for 2022-2023. She has been a Deputy Lieutenant in the Glasgow Lieutenancy since 2017 and was appointed an OBE in the 2023 New Year’s Honours’ list, for services to the history of women in engineering.