Margaret Ebbage

Born: 29 May, 1914

Died: 4 January, 2004, in Haddington, aged 89

MARGARET Ebbage was only the second woman in Scotland to gain a commercial pilot’s licence and the first to become a flying instructor.

Born Margaret Cunnison, her parents came from Blairgowrie, in Perthshire, but the family settled in Milngavie when her father, James, became a lecturer in political economy at the University of Glasgow. Margaret was educated at Laurel Bank School and, in addition to more traditional activities, developed an interest in aircraft and flying.

After leaving school, she entered a competition in 1933 for "air scholarships" run by the Evening News. She was one of two winners (both of whom came from Milngavie) of free lessons with the Scottish Flying Club. She gained her A licence, then travelled to Lympne, in Kent, to complete her training for the B licence, following in the footsteps of Winnie Drinkwater, the first female in Scotland to gain a commercial pilot’s licence.

Margaret was engaged by the Scottish Flying Club in their workshop at Renfrew Aerodrome and, partly to enhance awareness of and interest in flying, she was employed to take holidaymakers on joy-rides at Ettrick Bay. Another assignment of which she had vivid memories was a flight to Stornoway with the 1937 Coronation newspapers the day after the event.

In 1937, she became only the second woman flying instructor in the UK, when she joined the Strathtay Aero Club, based at Newlands Aerodrome, Perth. This job lasted until the early days of the Second World War when, to release RAF pilots for active service, the Air Transport Auxiliary was formed to ferry planes from factories to airfields and storage depots. After initial reluctance to recruit women to this organisation, personnel shortages led to a change of policy, and Margaret was one of the original eight females to be chosen. Apart from ferrying planes, she became the principal instructor at the ATA’s base at Hatfield, in Hertfordshire, where she was responsible for appraising and training new recruits. She was subsequently posted to White Waltham, in Berkshire, and flew with the ATA until 1943.

In 1941, she had married Geoffrey Ebbage, an ophthalmic surgeon with the RAMC, whom she had met when they were both stationed in Hatfield. After the war they settled in London, where their son was born in 1948. Margaret lived most of the rest of her life there until she moved to Haddington in 1994 to be near her family.