Winifred Hackett

Winifred Hackett (2 October 1906 – 3 June 1994) was an electrical and aeronautical engineer who worked on guided weapon systems and the DEUCE computer.

Hackett was born in Kings Norton, an area of Birmingham on 2 October 1906.

She attended King Edward's Girls’ High School in Edgbaston, Birmingham. Hackett was an exceptional student and won a scholarship whilst at the school. She originally planned to study architecture and for a time attended UCL with this purpose, but decided to change academic direction, returning to Birmingham to study engineering instead.^[1]

In 1929 Hackett was the first woman to graduate from the University of Birmingham with an engineering degree,^[2][3] and won the prize for the 'Best Engineer in the University of Birmingham' in 1930.^[3] Hackett's academic success resulted in the award of the Bowen Scholarship for Electrical Engineering, which enabled her to stay on to earn an MSc.^[4] A further grant from the Institution of Electrical Engineers' War Thanksgiving Education and Research Fund in 1930 supported her a to earn a PhD on selenium cells, again at the University of Birmingham.^[5]

She then became an aeronautical engineer.

Hackett's first job was at the British Electrical and Allied Industries Research Association at Perivale^[6] and then Leatherhead, where she worked as a Junior Technical Assistant.^[5] During this time she was researching dielectrics and published a number of papers on dielectrics, capacitors and DC design.^[7] She encouraged colleagues, including Miriam Violet Griffith, to join the Women's Engineering Society.^[6]

By the 1950s Hackett was head of the Guided Weapons Division at aerospace and defence company English Electric, working on Mathematical Physics,^[8][9] and based first in Luton and later in Stevenage. She was in charge of the DEUCE computer and its programming on punched cards and paper tape. The Deuce was a commercialised version of Alan Turing’s ACE computer. of which 33 were sold and which had a library of over 1,000 programmes.^[2] The period when Hackett ran the guided weapons division also saw the development of the Thunderbird surface to air missile and other ballistic missiles.^[2]

In the early 1960s Hackett joined the Manchester Business School as a Senior Research Fellow^[10] where she undertook statistical analysis.^[11] It was here that the future software designer Judy Butland became her mathematical assistant and computer.^[12]

Having been involved with the Women's Engineering Society since 1929, particularly the Manchester branch, in 1943 Hackett was elected to the governing council. In August that year she chaired a meeting which set up a branch in Birmingham, and shortly afterwards was elected vice president of the main organisation.^[7]

She became the President of the Women's Engineering Society (WES) in 1946,^[13] succeeding Margaret Partridge in the role. Hackett's successor as president was Frances Heywood.

In 1950, she and fellow senior WES members, Ira Rischowski and Sheila Leather published a report on equal pay for women in engineering, which concluded that there was "no justification for lower salary scales for women".^[14]

Hackett was a member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers.^[8]

Hackett's interests included fashion and the theatre, and very accurate map reading. Even in retirement, when her own health was suffering, she devised various aids for disabled people.^[4]

Winifred Hackett died in on 3 June 1994.^[2]

• Hackett, Winifred; Morris Thomas, A. (1941). "The electric strength of mica and its variation with temperature". Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers - Part I: General. 88 (8): 295–303. doi:10.1049/ji-1.1941.0068.
• Austen, A.E.W.; Hackett, W. (1944). "Internal discharges in dielectrics: their observation and analysis". Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers - Part I: General. 91 (44): 298–312. doi:10.1049/ji-1.1944.0073.

http://www.magnificentwomen.co.uk/engineer-of-the-week/88-winifred-hackett