Born: 21 January 1879, United Kingdom
Died: 26 August 1967
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: Helen Charlotte Isabella Fraser
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women founder Allison Tyra’s book The View from the Hill: Women Who Made Their Mark After 40.
Helen Gwynne-Vaughan was an acclaimed mycologist, King’s College graduate, and Head of the Botany Department (as well as first female professor) at Birkbeck College long before she joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps during World War I, and was made chief controller of the women deployed to France. While this was in her late 30s, she was transferred to the role of Commandant of the Women’s Royal Air Force (WRAF) a few months before turning 40. She overhauled the administrative system, opened and equipped an officer training facility, revised the standing orders, and introduced military protocol. Coming from a military family, she was uniquely qualified to bring the WRAF in line with military standards, and this professionalism helped shift male perspectives on women in service. Air Vice Marshal Sir William Sefton Brancker credited her with the fact that, “By the end of the year the WRAF was the best disciplined and best turned-out women’s organization in the country.”
Like many women, she then returned to service 20 years later for World War II, when she was appointed director of the newly formed Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) in 1939. In between, she had been instrumental in establishing Emergency Services, an organization created to train female officers. Around the time she retired in 1941, the ATS was given full military status, rather than a volunteer organization. This was not a sudden shift, but rather the result of many years’ effort on Gwynne-Vaughan and others’ parts to make it clear to the military men that women deserved their place in the armed forces.