Elsie MacGill

In October 2020 she was the topic of a Heritage Minute short film honouring her achievements in the Second World War.

In 2019, the Lakehead District School Board approved Ecole Elsie MacGill Public School as the name of the still-under construction elementary school that will replace Agnew H. Johnston and Edgewater Park public schools when it opens in September 2020.

Also in 2019, she was the honoree of a Canada Post stamp as part of the "Canadians in Flight" series.

In 2016, she was proposed as one of five finalists to be on Canadian banknotes, a competition closed to men.

Her life story is part of the documentary Rosies of the North (1999).

In 1983 MacGill was inducted into Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame, and in 1992 she was a founding inductee in the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame in Ottawa.

After a short illness, MacGill died on November 4, 1980, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In noting her death, Shirley Allen, a Canadian member of the Ninety-Nines organization of women aviators said of her: "She had a brilliant mind and was recognized as an outstanding Canadian woman. Neither gender nor disability prevented her from using her talents to serve her community and country."

MacGill was also a member of the Ontario Status of Women Committee, an affiliate of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women. For this work she was given the Order of Canada in 1971.

MacGill was awarded the Centennial Medal by the Canadian government in 1967, and the Order of Canada in 1971 for "services as an aeronautical engineering consultant and as a member of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women." The Ninety-Nines awarded her the Amelia Earhart Medal in 1975; and in 1979 the Ontario Association of Professional Engineers presented her with their gold medal.

MacGill served as the president of the Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs from 1962 to 1964. In 1967 she was named to the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada and co-authored the report published in 1970. She also filed a "Separate Statement" describing those of her opinions that differed from the majority on the commission. For example, she wanted abortion removed from the entirety of the Criminal Code.

After breaking her leg in 1953, MacGill used the opportunity of her months of convalescence to sort through her mother's papers and begin writing a biography of her mother's life. MacGill published the book, My Mother, the Judge: A Biography of Judge Helen Gregory MacGill, in 1955. Her mother and grandmother's active public service and work in the suffrage movement inspired her to spend an increasing amount of time dealing with women's rights during the 1960s.

In 1952, MacGill presented a paper to the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) conference, "The Initiative in Airliner Design", that was subsequently published in The Engineering Journal. A year later they awarded her their annual Engineering Award.

By the time the production line shut down in 1943, CanCar had produced over 1,400 Hurricanes. In 1940 she wrote and presented a paper on the experience, "Factors Affecting Mass Production of Aeroplanes", later published in The Engineering Journal . Her role in this successful production run made her famous, even to the point of having a comic book biography appear in an issue of True Comics in 1942, using her nickname, "Queen of the Hurricanes”. Numerous popular stories were published about her in the media as well, reflecting the public's fascination with this female engineer.

MacGill and Soulsby were married in 1943 and moved to Toronto, where they set up an aeronautical consulting business. In 1946, she became the first woman to serve as Technical Advisor for International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), where she helped to draft International Air Worthiness regulations for the design and production of commercial aircraft. In 1947 she became the chairman of the United Nations Stress Analysis Committee, the first woman ever to chair a UN committee.

MacGill's paper, Factors Affecting the Mass Production of Aeroplanes, won the Gzowski Medal from the Engineering Institute of Canada in 1941. In 1953, she was one of only 50 people, and the only woman, to have her picture in the exclusive Gevaert Gallery of Canadian Executives to honour her contributions and influence. In 1953 the Society of Women Engineers (in the U.S.) presented her with its Achievement Award "in recognition of her meritorious contributions to aeronautical engineering," the first time that the Award had gone out of the United States.

In 1934, MacGill started work at Fairchild Aircraft's operations in Longueuil as an Assistant Aeronautical Engineer. In 1938, she was the first woman elected to corporate membership in the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC). She presented a paper, "Simplified Performance Calculations for Aeroplanes", to the Royal Aeronautical Society in Ottawa, on March 22, 1938 to high praise. It was later published in The Engineering Journal. She also participated in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's six-part series, The Engineer in War Time; her segment was called "Aircraft Engineering in Wartime Canada". In 1942, she was elected to the position of Chairman of the EIC, Lakehead Branch, after having also served as their Vice-Chairman.

MacGill's mother was an advocate of women's suffrage and influenced her decision to study engineering. She graduated from the University of Toronto in 1927, and was the first Canadian woman to earn a degree in electrical engineering.

Following graduation, MacGill took a junior job with a firm in Pontiac, Michigan. During the time there, the company began producing aircraft, which furthered her interest in aeronautics. She began part-time graduate studies in aeronautical engineering at the University of Michigan, enrolling in the fall of 1927 in the full-time Master of Science in Engineering program to begin aircraft design work and conduct research and development in the University's new aeronautics facilities. In 1929, she became the first woman in North America, and likely the world, to be awarded a master's degree in aeronautical engineering.

MacGill was admitted to the University of Toronto's Bachelor of Applied Sciences program in 1923. During the summers she worked in machine shops repairing electrical motors to supplement the theory and practical teachings during the school year. It is also here that she became exposed to the nascent field of aeronautical engineering. Contracting polio just before her graduation, MacGill was told that she would probably spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. She refused to accept that possibility, however, and learned to walk supported by two strong metal canes. She became Canada's first woman graduate in electrical engineering.

When MacGill was 12 years old, her mother was appointed Judge of the Juvenile Court of Vancouver. After 1911, the racial strife in British Columbia continued to escalate, and Jim MacGill's immigration-related legal work was directly impacted. This caused severe financial strain for the family during the war years. Her early aptitude for "fixing things" held the family in good stead, and informed discussions of possible careers.

Elizabeth Muriel Gregory "Elsie" MacGill, OC (March 27, 1905 – November 4, 1980), known as the "Queen of the Hurricanes", was the world's first woman to earn an aeronautical engineering degree and was the first woman in Canada to receive a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. She worked as an aeronautical engineer during the Second World War and did much to make Canada a powerhouse of aircraft construction during her years at Canadian Car and Foundry (CC&F) in Fort William, Ontario. After her work at CC&F, she ran a successful consulting business. Between 1967 and 1970, she was a commissioner on the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada, which reported in 1970..mw-parser-output .toclimit-2 .toclevel-1 ul,.mw-parser-output .toclimit-3 .toclevel-2 ul,.mw-parser-output .toclimit-4 .toclevel-3 ul,.mw-parser-output .toclimit-5 .toclevel-4 ul,.mw-parser-output .toclimit-6 .toclevel-5 ul,.mw-parser-output .toclimit-7 .toclevel-6 ul{display:none}

MacGill was born in Vancouver on March 27, 1905, youngest daughter of James Henry MacGill, a prominent Vancouver lawyer, part-time journalist, and Anglican deacon, and Helen Gregory MacGill, a journalist and British Columbia's first woman judge. She had two older step-brothers from her mother's first marriage, and an older sister with whom she was very close.