International Women�s Day

Lincoln Jopp Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I think that International Women�s Day is fantastic because it gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to someone whose birthday would have been on International Women�s Day had she not been born in 1909. I hope that she passes the �gladiator� bar to which the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) referred.

Beatrice Shilling is one of the most consequential people of the 20th century that people have never heard of. She was born in Waterlooville, Hampshire, and soon became one of those children who loves taking things to bits�she won a Meccano prize. She saved up her pocket money and bought her first motorbike at the age of 14. By 1936, she was only the second woman ever to record an average speed of 100 mph around the Brooklands circuit just over the River Thames from my Spelthorne constituency.

By 1939, Beatrice Shilling was at the Royal Aircraft Establishment. Obviously, the second world war was upon us. Crucially, the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine used in the Hurricanes and Spitfires had a fatal flaw: once pilots went into a negative G-force dive, the engine had a propensity to flood and cut out. The Germans did not have that problem because they had a fuel injector, and they soon worked out that the British pilots faced the dilemma of whether or not to follow them. That could have been catastrophic, so people turned to Tilly Shilling, as she was universally known, to come up with a solution. She invented a small thing�the size of a thimble�with a little hole in it, which could, crucially, be fitted to the fuel line of the Merlin engine without taking the plane to bits, meaning that the much-needed air power of the second world war could remain in the fight.

Beatrice Shilling faced a certain amount of male condescension. The device she had designed was referred to as �Miss Shilling�s orifice�. However, no one minded the fact that, when fitted to the planes, the devices kept them in the fight. She contributed an extraordinary amount to the winning of the second world war. I welcome International Women�s Day because it gives me the chance to tell that story. At a time when clouds are again darkening around the world and the nation has to re-arm, and, as we have heard, we must encourage the Tilly Shillings of tomorrow to come forward to contribute to our defence and aerospace industry, I hope that her story will inspire many people across the country to see that they can make a huge contribution to our national defence.