Lady Platt of Writtle obituary
Beryl Platt, Lady Platt of Writtle, who has died aged 91, chaired the Equal Opportunities Commission between 1983 and 1988. She was also one of the first female aeronautical engineers, and played a vital part in the design of aircraft pivotal to the allied victory in the second world war.
She was only 20, and a new Cambridge graduate, when in 1943 she joined Hawker Aircraft in its experimental flight test department at Langley, Berkshire, in top-secret work on fighter aircraft: the Hurricane, Typhoon, Tempest and Fury. She was present when the Last of the Many, the final Hawker Hurricane - an aircraft that had shot down more enemy aircraft in the Battle of Britain than the rest of UK air and ground defences combined - rolled off the production line in July 1944.
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