Isabel Hardwich

Isabel Helen Hardwich (née Cox, 19 September 1919 – 1987) was an electrical engineer and photometry expert, Fellow and President of the Women's Engineering Society. She was born in Streatham, London, in 1919[1] and died in 1987.[2]

Isabel Hardwich
Born19 September 1919
Streatham
Died1987
Alma materNewnham College
Occupationelectrical engineer, photometry expert

Education

Hardwich attended Furzedown Primary School and Streatham Secondary School (both London County Council schools).[3] She was accepted into Newnham College, Cambridge to read for the Natural sciences Tripos, where she specialised in Physics, studying there between 1938 and 1941.[3][4]

Upon leaving Cambridge, Hardwich joined Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company Ltd. in Manchester in 1941,[2] initially completing a two-year college-apprenticeship course in engineering.[3] She became an associate member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1942 and received her MA in 1945.[4]

Career

After completion of her apprenticeship, Hardwich worked in the Research Department, becoming one of the original members of the Metropolitan-Vickers Electron Microscope team.[3] After a year and a half of working on this project she shifted her focus and began building a photometric laboratory, however this was badly damaged in a fire.[3] She subsequently worked on a setting up a Hilger large ultra-violet spectrometer, then designing an X-ray Geiger counter spectrometer.[3] By 1959, she was working with berillium to find the best way of refining, melting and welding it for the cans intended to hold in place enriched uranium inside the new nuclear reactors.[5] Like most of the staff, Hardwich lectured part-time at UMIST and RCAT, Salford.[2]

In 1960 she was given responsibility for the employment and training of 'technical' women within the company's research department.[2] Throughout her career, Isabel Hardwich campaigned tirelessly to educate, recruit and support young women into the industry as professional engineers.[2]

Hardwich became a member of the Illuminating Engineering Society in 1947 and joined the I.E.S Manchester Centre Committee in 1948, serving on both the Education and Papers sub-committees.[3] She was elected a member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1950.[3]

Hardwich was strongly involved in the Women's Engineering Society.[6] She joined in 1941 and helped to set up its Manchester branch the year after, alongside her great friend motor engineer Elsie Eleanor Verity. She was elected to hold the office of vice-chairman of the Manchester Branch of the for the session 1946–1947.[7] She subsequently served as chairman for the session 1947–1948.[8] As chairman, Hardwich gave the first talk organised by the Manchester Branch in that year, a chairman's address entitled "Lighten Our Darkness", introducing the theory of relativity.[8] She later went on to serve as the vice president of the Women's Engineering Society between 1956-1960 and as president from 1961-1962.[9] She was WES' Honorary Secretary from 1966-1973.[4] Hardwich was the only woman engineer delegate at the Institution of Electrical Engineers conference held in Belfast in May 1963.[10] She played a key role in the first six International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists, particularly in arranging the second conference held in Cambridge in 1967.[4]

She was also elected a fellow of the Society of Women Engineers havine been a member since 1962.[11][4] Hardwick retired in 1979.[4]

Personal life

Isabel married John Norman Hardwich in 1945, who at the time was working as an engineer in the High Voltage Research Laboratory Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company Ltd.[3] He was an associate and also a keen supporter of the Women's Engineering Society, and he shared the burdens of running the home to allow Isabel to continue working at Metropolitan-Vickers.[3]

Legacy

Hardwich's archive is held at the Institution of Engineering and Technology.[6] The Women's Engineering Society has awarded the Isabel Hardwich medal, named in her honour, since 1987. This is given to a member who has made an outstanding and sustained contribution to the Society over a number of years and gone above and beyond the call of duty.[12] Past recipients include:[13]

  • 2020 - Dawn Bonfield[14]
  • 2019 - Petra Gratton
  • 2018 – Nina Baker
  • 2017 – Milada Williams and Linda Maynard
  • 2016 – Dawn Fitt and Jackie Longworth
  • 2015 – Dr Carol Marsh and Anne Wiseman
  • 2014 – Alexandra Walker
  • 2013 – Grazyna Whapshott
  • 2012 – Jan Peters
  • 2010 – Pam Wain and Betty McCarthy
  • 2007 – Dorothy Hatfield
  • 2005 – Connie Shirley
  • 2004 – Michael Sanderson, retired chief executive of SEMTA
  • 2003 – Sue Bird and Nicole Rockliff

[Temporary cessation of the award]

  • 1992 – Hilda Blount
  • 1991 – May Maple
  • 1990 – Cicely Thompson
  • 1989 – John Hardwich (Isabel's husband)
  • 1988 – Elizabeth Laverick
  • 1987 – Sheila Waddell

References
  1. "Birth and death records". www.ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
  2. Jackson, Veronica (2016). "Part Three: Isabel Hardwich: A WES stalwart at Metrovicks". Metropolitan Vickers: Arthur Fleming’s Influence on the Origins and Evolution of Apprentice Training and Technical Education, with particular reference to Female College and Student Apprentices between 1945–1967 (PDF) (Thesis). Department of History, Politics and Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
  3. "The Woman Engineer". Journal of the Women's Engineering Society (Incorporated 1920). VII. No. 2: Page 14. Summer 1951. Archived from the original on 10 May 2019. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
  4. "The Woman Engineer Vol 13". www2.theiet.org. Retrieved 9 January 2021.
  5. "Liverpool Echo". www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk. 8 September 1959. Retrieved 9 January 2021.
  6. "Hardwich, Isabel Helen (1919–1987) Honorary Secretary of the Women's Engineering Society and Research Physicist". discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. The National Archives. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
  7. "The Woman Engineer". Journal of the Women's Engineering Society (Incorporated 1920). VI. No. 7. Summer 1946. Archived from the original on 10 May 2019. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
  8. "The Woman Engineer". Journal of the Women's Engineering Society (Incorporated 1920). VI. No. 12. Summer 1948. Archived from the original on 10 May 2019. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
  9. "Presidents Past & Present | Women's Engineering Society". www.wes.org.uk. Retrieved 18 May 2019.
  10. "Belfast Telegraph". www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk. 31 May 1963. Retrieved 9 January 2021.
  11. "SWE Celebrates International Women's Day".
  12. "Isabel Hardwich Medal: Women's Engineering Society". www.wes.org.uk. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
  13. "Isabel Hardwich Medal | Women's Engineering Society". www.wes.org.uk. Retrieved 18 May 2019.
  14. "Isabel Hardwich Medal | Women's Engineering Society". www.wes.org.uk. Retrieved 9 January 2021.
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