Lady Mary Heath

Born Sophie Peirce-Evans in Knockaderry, Co. Limerick, in 1896. In June 1926 she became Britain’s first officially recognised woman commercial pilot, after campaigning against the ban on women holding commercial licences.

In 1928 she became the first woman to fly solo from South Africa to England. She left Pretoria on 17th February and reached Croydon on 17th May, having covered about 10,000 miles. The journey included sunstroke, an emergency landing and a bullet hole discovered in one wing. She stepped out in a silk dress, fur coat and black straw hat.