Verena Holmes (1889) was an English mechanical engineer and multi-field inventor, the first woman member elected to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (1924) and the Institution of Locomotive Engineers (1931), and was a strong supporter of women in engineering. She was one of the early members of the Women's Engineering Society, and its president in 1931. She was the first practising engineer to serve as president of the society.
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| Verena Holmes' portrait in the announcement of her Presidency of the Women's Engineering Society in their journal The Woman Engineer vol 3 |
Alongside her own work as an engineer, she was a strong advocate for the movement of women in engineering. Her remarkable achievements include her work during the first and second world war, helping found the Women’s Engineering Society in 1919.
On leaving school she began studying photography, despite her true interest laying in engineering. At the beginning of the 1914-18 war she was hired to cover men’s work whilst they were away. She built wooden propellers in Hendon and took evening classes at Shoreditch Technical Institute. Later on, she went up to Lincoln where she began working at Ruston and Hornsby, and attended the local technical College. Before the end of the war Holmes successfully secured an apprenticeship at the firm. In 1922 she graduated with BSc from Loughborough Engineering College.
She had a number of jobs with locomotive companies and invented tho poppet valve for steam locomotives. She was the first female admitted to the Institution of Locomotive Engineers in 1931. Southeastern railways named a Class 375 train (Unit 375829) in her honour.
In 1946 she founded her own female only engineering firm named with fellow WES member Sheila Leather employing only women.
Her promotion of women in engineering also included working for government departments, writing and lecturing. The Verena Holmes Building, a £65 million STEM building at Canterbury Christ Church University is named in her honour.
Her birthday is also the date of International Women in Engineering Day
Information from the Asford Museum, where she was born in 1889. She died in 1964
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