Cheridah de Beauvoir Stocks
Cheridah de Beauvoir Stocks | |
---|---|
Born |
Evercreech, Somerset, England | 6 November 1887
Died |
1 May 1971 83) Northampton, Northamptonshire, England | (aged
Nationality | United Kingdom |
Known for | Pioneer women aviator |
Cheridah de Beauvoir Stocks (1887–1971) was only the second British women to gain a Royal Aero Club aviator's licence in 1911.[1]
Early life
Cheridah was born Cheridah Annie Ernst on the 6 November 1887 in Evercreech, Somerset, England, the daughter of Henry Ernst, a magistrate, and his wife Annie (née Waring). In the 1901 Census Cheridah was living at the Hotel Metropole on Northumberland Avenue, Strand, London with her sister Bessie and her widowed mother.[2]
She married in London in 1909 to David de Beauvoir Stocks. On the 7 November 1911 she became only the second woman to gain a Royal Aero Club aviators certificate passing her test using a Farman biplane at Hendon.[1] Following a crash during an airshow at Hendon in 1913 she was unconscious for six weeks and her recovery was closely followed by the newspapers of the day. Stocks never flew again.[1]
Her husband David a Commander in the Royal Navy died on 31 January 1918 when the submarine HMS K4 was lost in an accident.[1]
Stocks went on to study at Oxford and gained a BSc in Social Anthropology, she died on 1 May 1971 in Northampton aged 83.[1]