Mary Bell

Mary Teston Luis Bell (3 December 1903 – 6 February 1979) was an Australian aviator and founding leader of the Women's Air Training Corps (WATC), a volunteer organisation that provided support to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) during World War II. She later helped establish the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF), the country's first and largest women's wartime service, which grew to more than 18,000 members by 1944. Born Mary Fernandes in Tasmania, Bell married a RAAF officer in 1923 and obtained her pilot's licence in 1927. Given temporary command of the WAAAF on its formation in 1941, she was passed over as its inaugural director in favour of corporate executive Clare Stevenson. Bell refused the post of deputy director and resigned, but subsequently rejoined and served until the final months of the war. She and her husband later became farmers. Nicknamed "Paddy", Bell died in 1979, aged seventy-five. Early life and WATC Mary Teston Luis Bell was born on 3 December 1903 in Launceston, Tasmania. She was the daughter of Rowland Walker Luis Fernandes, an English-born clerk, and his Australian wife, Emma Dagmar, née Mahony. Her maternal great-great grandfather was shipwright Jonathan Griffiths. Mary attended Church of England Girls' Grammar School, Launceston, and St Margaret's School, Devonport, before commencing work in a solicitor's office aged fourteen. She married John Bell (1889–1973), a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) officer and World War I veteran of the Gallipoli campaign and the Australian Flying Corps, at St Andrew's Anglican Church in Brighton, Victoria, on 19 March 1923. They had a daughter in 1926. From 1925 until early 1928, the Bells lived in England while John attended RAF Staff College, Andover, and served as RAAF liaison officer to the Royal Air Force (RAF). Interested in aviation since her teens, Mary learnt to fly in England and in April 1927 qualified for a Grade A private pilot's licence. Returning to Australia, on 20 March 1928 she became the first female to gain a pilot's licence in Victoria, and the sixth in Australia. The following year, she became the first Australian woman to qualify as a ground engineer.