Women’s Engineering Society Centenary Celebrations

That the Parliament recognises that the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) is celebrating its centenary in 2019, after 100 years of inspiring and supporting girls and women to achieve their potential as engineers, applied scientists and technical leaders; notes that WES was founded on 23 June 1919 by a small committee drawn from the National Council of Women, which was created during the First World War to encourage women into work to release more men for the armed forces; understands that this group of influential women had government backing to support women engineers who, although welcomed into the profession during the war, were under pressure at the end of the war to leave the workforce to release jobs for men returning from the forces; considers that this centenary coincides with the 155th anniversary of the birth of one of WES’s founding members and eventual President, Lady Margaret Moir; notes that Lady Moir, born in Edinburgh on 10 January 1864, was a lifelong advocate for women’s rights and women in engineering, organising the Women Relief Munition Workers during the First World War to provide weekend relief for the exhausted women workforce; is aware that Lady Moir was also treasurer and secretary of the Women’s Advisory Committee of the National War Savings Committee, raising several hundred thousand pounds by organising the sale of war savings certificates and war bonds in London; is also aware that, after the war, Lady Moir was appointed an OBE in recognition of her contribution and proceeded to work tirelessly as a founding member of the WES to set up training courses for women engineers and encourage women to take up engineering as a career, and believes that Lady Moir’s contribution to the advancement of women in engineering careers should be remembered and celebrated as part of WES’s centenary.