Marion Wilberforce

Marion Wilberforce (22 July 1902 – 17 December 1995) was a Scottish aviator and one of the first eight members of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA).

She flew many planes including Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancaster Bombers, Wellington Bombers and Mosquitos.

She rose to become deputy commander of the No. 5 Ferry Pool at Hatfield, and later became commander of the No. 12 Ferry Pool at Cosford, one of only two women pool commanders in the whole ATA.

She was born on 22 July 1902 to Anne Ogilvie Forbes (née Prendergast) and John Ogilvie-Forbes, the 9th Laird of Boyndlie, she was one of seven children.

At the age of 12 her father ceased to take an interest in the running of the house and estate, entrusting her with its management, two years later she would be seen riding round on horseback to collect the rent from the tenants.

After a series of French governesses at home she went to the Convent of Jesus and Mary at Stony Stratford in Bucks from 1919 to 1921.

In 1922 she went up to Somerville College Oxford to read for a degree in agriculture which in due course she obtained.

Many years later she gave her books to Reading University library, assuming that what she had learnt was then contained in museum pieces.

While there she acted in the French Club on one occasion performing the role of chambermaid in Les Deux Pierrots, and was a member of the university's Women's Mountaineering Team.

She also obtained a certificate of merit in jiu-jitsu.

With two brothers in aviation she caught the bug of flying, and saved up to learn to fly by working on an outdoors magazine in Bedford Square.

She obtained her private pilot's licence in 1930.

She bought her first aircraft, a de Havilland Cirrus Moth, in 1937 from money made on the stock exchange as a child, having been taught how to invest on it by her uncle Reginald Prendergast.

She graduated from this to a Hornet Moth.

For tax purposes these aircraft were classified as farm implements and kept in a barn.

They were used to ferry poultry about in, as well as Dexter cattle which she bred at Nevendon Manor in Essex precisely because they would fit into the aeroplanes.

On one occasion she flew a calf back from Hungary.

By the outbreak of the Second World War she has 900 flying hours in her logbook.

On 16 December 1939, the first group of twelve women pilots were assembled at Whitchurch, and flight-tested in a Gypsy Moth.

From this group of twelve, eight were selected and appointed as second officers.

Marion Wilberforce was one of these, known as the First Eight alongside Joan Hughes, Margaret Cunnison, Winifred Crossley Fair, Mona Friedlander, Gabrielle Patterson, Margaret Fairweather and Rosemary Rees, under the command of Pauline Gower.

These women were tasked with the hazardous job of ferrying all types of aircraft from factories to aircraft storage units and despatch points, and on to operational stations.

When she joined the ATA she had flown 900 hours.

Initially, the ATA women flew the non operational aircraft with which they were most familiar, but by mid-1941 Marion Wilberforce was flying operational machines including Hurricanes and Spitfires which she piloted as a matter of course.

The first Spitfire she flew was donated by the citizens of Grimsby and accordingly called Grimsby II.

During 1942 she mastered the whole gamut of twin-engined medium bombers including the Wellington and Mosquito.

Two years later she became one of only eleven women pilots trained to fly four-engined bombers such as the Lancaster.

By the end of the War she had flown most of the one hundred and thirty aircraft flown by members of the ATA.

In the early days she also had to fly civilian aircraft that had been impressed, including her own Hornet Moth which was later lost on a reconnaissance flight.

Aircraft piloted by her ended up in South Africa, North East India, Ceylon, the Middle East and Russia.

They were otherwise variously used for the invasion of Madagascar, for bomber crew training, anti-submarine duties, air sea rescue and the spectacular attack on the Gestapo Headquarters in Oslo in 1942.

By March 1943 she had flown one thousand and eight hundred hours more.

She was first deputy and then commanding officer of the inaugural women's Ferry Pool at Hatfield, and in 1943 became commander of the No 12 Ferry Pool at Cosford, one of only two women pool commanders in the whole ATA.

On one occasion she arrived at a factory to discover that the employees were on strike and that the aircraft that she had been sent to collect could not be released.

She went to the canteen, stood on a table and gave a resounding speech about the war effort.

This secured the release of her aircraft.

One of her colleagues was Amy Johnson, the woman aviator who drowned in the Thames whilst on a mission.

Marion Wilberforce, who knew her well, was often asked for recollections of her, which irritated her since she considered her to be overrated and a poor flyer prone to panic.

She did not say this in public.

On 27 October 1944 she delivered to Armstrong Whitworth at Baginton a particularly interesting Lancaster which was to be fitted with the company's first axial flow turbojet.