page_title: Caroline Haslett
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Caroline Haslett / Career
caption_attribution_description: Blue plaque honouring Dame Caroline Haslett, produced by Crawley Arts Council and EDF Energy. Plaque reads: Born at Worth and later living in Three Bridges Dame Caroline Haslett (1895-1957) Electrical Engineer became in 1924 the first director of the Electrical Association for Women
context_page_description: Dame Caroline Harriet Haslett, DBE, JP was an English electrical engineer, electricity industry administrator and champion of women's rights.
  She was the first secretary of the Women's Engineering Society and the founder and editor of its journal, The Woman Engineer. She was co-founder, alongside Laura Annie Willson and with the support of Margaret, Lady Moir, of the Electrical Association for Women, which pioneered such 'wonders', as they were described in contemporary magazines, as the All-Electric House in Bristol in 1935. She became the first director of the Electrical Association for Women in 1925. Her chief interest was in harnessing the benefits of electrical power to emancipate women from household chores, so that they could pursue their own ambitions outside the home. In the early 1920s, few houses had electric light or heating, let alone electrical appliances; the National Grid was not yet in existence.
  'Way is being made by electricity for a higher order of women – women set free from drudgery, who have time for reflection; for self-respect.
context_section_description: In 1919 Haslett left Cochran's to become the first secretary of the Women's Engineering Society (WES) and first editor of The Woman Engineer magazine, which she continued to edit until 1932. 
  In June 1920 she helped to found Atalanta Ltd, an engineering firm for women. 
  In 1924 she was approached by Mrs Mabel Lucy Matthews about an idea she had to popularise the domestic use of electricity to lighten the burden on women. The Institution of Electrical Engineers and the Electrical Development Association had turned the proposal down, but Haslett saw its possibilities. She was very enthused by the concept and persuaded Lady Katharine Parsons, then president of WES, to host a meeting to discuss it. In November 1924 she co-founded and became the first director of the Electrical Association for Women, of which she remained a director until 1956, when she was obliged to retire because of ill health; from 1924 to 1956 she edited The Electrical Age, the EAW's journal.
  In 1925 the Women's Engineering Society came to national attention when it organised a special conference at Wembley, in association with the First International Conference of Women in Science, Industry and Commerce. The conference was opened by the Duchess of York (later Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother) and was chaired by Nancy, Lady Astor, the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons. This event also introduced Caroline Haslett to a wider public. She remained secretary of WES until 1929, when she became honorary secretary, and she was the society's president from 1940 to 1941 (succeeding shipyard director Edith Mary Douglas, and succeeded by electrical engineer Gertrude Entwistle).
  Haslett was the sole woman delegate to the World Power Conference in Berlin in 1930 and represented Britain at later power conferences. During the next 20 years her public activities were extraordinary, as described by her friend Margaret Partridge, electrical engineer and another president of WES: 'She was a member of council of the British Institute of Management 1946–54, of the Industrial Welfare Society, of the National Industrial Alliance, of the Administrative Staff College, and of King's College of Household and Social Science; a governor of the London School of Economics, of Queen Elizabeth College, and of Bedford College for Women; a member of the Central Committee on Women's Training and Employment; a member of council and vice-president of the Royal Society of Arts 1941–55; and president of the British Federation of Business and Professional Women. She was a member of the Women's Consultative Committee and the Advisory Council of the Appointments Department, Ministry of Labour; a member of the Correspondence Committee on Women's Work of the International Labour Office; and the first woman to be made a Companion of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE).'
  In 1932 the National Safety First Association (the forerunner of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) extended its activities to home safety, and Caroline Haslett was appointed as chair of the Home Safety Committee, a post she held until 1936. She became the first woman vice-president of the association in 1937.
  During the Second World War she was the only woman member (and the only safety expert) on the 20-person committee convened by the IEE to examine the requirements for electrical installations in post-war Britain, part of a larger scheme of Post-War Building Studies. An important part of those recommendations was a new plug and socket standard, the first requirement for which was To ensure the safety of young children it is of considerable importance that the contacts of the socket-outlet should be protected by shutters or other like means, or by the inherent design of the socket outlet. The result was BS 1363. The report also recommended the ring circuit system, which would become standard
  Haslett became vice-president of the International Federation of Business and Professional Women in 1936 and president of the organisation in 1950; and she was the first woman to chair a government w
caption: Plaque commemorating the life of Caroline Haslett in Haslett Avenue East, Three Bridges, Crawley, West Sussex
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