Mrs Millicent Bryant

February 5th, 2010 by Kathy Hackett

This photograph, from the Powerhouse Museum publication Women with Wings shows Mrs Millicent Bryant in 1927, the year she became the first woman to achieve a pilot’s licence in Australia. 1927 was the first year in which light aeroplane clubs in Australia began admitting women members. By the end of the year two more women had gained their ‘A’ (private) licence and by the end of 1929 this number had increased to 18. A further 10 women qualified following Amy Johnson’s arrival in Australia after a solo flight from England in May 1930.

The Women with wings project was the initiative of Powerhouse Museum photographer Sue Stafford. Sue travelled across Australia to produce the 33 photographic portraits of contemporary women pilots, which were then exhibited at the Powerhouse to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Australian Women Pilots’ Association (AWPA) in May 2000.

The women were selected to represent the national identity of the AWPA and to show a cross-section of Australian aviation, including commercial, military and recreational flying. These portraits and others of pioneer Australian women pilots like Mrs Bryant can be seen in the Women with wings book.

Photograph reproduced courtesy of Mrs Prudence Bryant

Tags: Australian, aviation, pilot, portraits, woman

The Powerhouse Museum's Photo of the Day blog features a new image each day, chosen from the Powerhouse Photo Library.

The majority of these images have been taken by Museum photographers for a variety of purposes such as for exhibitions, of objects in our collection, events, behind-the-scenes and location shots. We also feature many images taken by our Flickr community and from our visitors. We hope you enjoy the photographs and stories.

The licensing of each image varies however we are trying to release as many as possible under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.1 license.