The men running the institution were unsure of what to do with the woman who would eventually become their first female member. “SIT and WAIT” was also added to the form in red ink.
“I thought that it meant that she had to sit and wait to be acknowledged,” said Elizabeth Donnelly, CEO of the Women’s Engineering Society (WES), at a recent IMechE event.
“But actually from looking at the entry I think it's probably ‘Please sit the exam, and then wait to see if you actually know what you're talking about.’ So I think they really didn't know what to do with a woman applying.”
This uncertainty was despite Sir Charles Parsons and various other knights of the realm sponsoring her as a member for the institution, Donnelly added – and the fact that Holmes did, in fact, know what she was talking about. An earlier application had already been denied, although according to IMechE minutes from December 1920 the decision was made “strictly on the merits of the case, and without prejudice on account of the candidate’s sex”.
But eventually, on 22 February 1924, Holmes was admitted as an associate member. She became a full member 20 years later.
The barriers she faced are a world away from the IMechE of today, which celebrated her legacy at a 100th anniversary event in March. The institution now has thousands of female members and is instrumental in efforts to increase the number of women in engineering, working in close partnership with WES (of which Holmes was president in 1931) to encourage and support women before and during their engineering careers.
Holmes’ trailblazing career was honoured with the unveiling of a new portrait by artist Sally Ede-Golightly in the institution library in One Birdcage Walk, Westminster. The event also featured a presentation by Alice Kan, who developed a manufacturing facility to rapidly produce 100m doses of the Oxford AZ Covid-19 vaccine, and a panel discussion about empowering women to excel throughout their engineering careers, including Isobel Pollock-Hulf OBE, chair of the IMechE diversity and inclusion committee, Annelies Look, deputy CEO at the UK Space Agency, and Ama Frimpong, head of product development at 52 North Health.
A pioneering career
Arguably the first woman to work full-time as a professional engineer, Holmes was born in Ashford, Kent, on 23 June 1889. Described as a “curious child who showed an early interest in engineering, often taking her toys apart to see how they worked,” in a Science Museum blog post, Holmes initially started work as a photographer after finishing school.
Holmes started her career in engineering during the First World War, one of many women joining roles in industry that would previously have been reserved for men. She worked for the Integral Propellor Company in Hendon building wooden propellors, then joined engine manufacturer Ruston & Hornsby in Lincoln in 1917. There, she completed an apprenticeship and was a ‘lady superintendent’ overseeing 1,500 women. When the war ended, she kept a position as an apprentice draughtsman, producing technical plans and drawings.
Graduating from Loughborough Engineering College with a Bachelor of Science in engineering in 1922, Holmes specialised in marine, locomotive and internal combustion engines. She worked in the US in the 1920s, worked for a company called Research Engineers in the 1930s, and was an advisor on munitions training to labour minister Ernest Bevin during the Second World War.
Engineer, inventor, campaigner
As an inventor, Holmes was awarded 12 patents in mechanical and biomedical engineering. The inventions included a poppet valve for steam locomotives, rotary valves for internal combustion engines, a surgeons’ headlamp, and an apparatus for treating patients with tuberculosis.
In 1946, she founded engineering firm Holmes and Leather in Kent, employing only women. The company created the first practical safety guillotine for paper.
“A majority of people in the world have used one of her inventions,” said Donnelly. “She was an engineer, an inventor. She campaigned for women in engineering and for engineering training.”
Rich legacy
Today, International Women in Engineering Day is held each year on Holmes’ birthday. Her rich legacy of invention and advocacy is celebrated at Canterbury Christ Church University, where the £65m Verena Holmes Building for STEM subjects was opened in 2021. A new building will also be named in her honour at Highworth Grammar School in Ashford, where she was born, and Southeastern railways named a Class 375 train in her honour last year.
In her work and her voluntary roles, Holmes “championed the cause of women engineers”, helping pave the way for the more equal – but still far from perfect – engineering workforce that we have today.
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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.