Elsie MacGill

Elizabeth Muriel Gregory MacGill OC (March 27, 1905 – November 4, 1980), known as the "Queen of the Hurricanes", was a Canadian engineer. She was chief aeronautical engineer at Canadian Car and Foundry (CC&F) in Fort William, Ontario during the Second World War. There she oversaw manufacturing of 1,451 Hawker Hurricane fighter aircraft for the Royal Canadian Air Force and the British Royal Air Force, then 835 Curtiss Helldivers for the U.S. Navy, which contributed greatly to the war effort and did much to make Canada a powerhouse of aircraft manufacturing. After her work at CC&F, she ran a successful aeronautical engineering consulting business. Between 1967 and 1970, she was a Commissioner on the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada, which published a report in 1970.

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 stepbrothers from her mother's first marriage, and an older sister with whom she was very close.

In the early years, the MacGill children were home-schooled in a formal setting to mimic that of Lord Roberts, the public school that the older boys attended. This included drawing lessons with Emily Carr, and swimming lessons with Joe Fortes. They later attended King George Secondary School, which was affiliated with McGill University. This rigorous education facilitated Elsie's entrance to the University of British Columbia when she was 16. She was admitted to the Applied Sciences program, but the Dean of the Faculty asked her to leave after only one term.

When MacGill was 12 years old, her mother was appointed judge of the juvenile court of Vancouver. After 1911, 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" stood the family in good stead, and informed discussions of possible careers.

MacGill's mother was an advocate of women's suffrage and influenced Elsie's decision to study engineering.

My presence in the University of Toronto's engineering classes in 1923 certainly turned a few heads.
Although I never learned to fly myself, I accompanied the pilots on all test flights – even the dangerous first flight – of any aircraft I worked on.

— Elsie MacGill, 1940,

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 though, and learned to walk supported by two metal canes. Elsie graduated from the University of Toronto in 1927, the first Canadian woman to earn a degree in electrical engineering.