Cheridah de Beauvoir Stocks

Cheridah de Beauvoir Stocks (1887–1971) was the second British woman to gain a Royal Aero Club aviator's licence, in 1911.^[1]

Early life[]

Cheridah was born Cheridah Annie Ernst on 6 November 1887 in Evercreech, Somerset, England, the daughter of Henry Ernst, a magistrate, and his wife Annie (née Waring). In the 1901 Census Cheridah was living at the Hotel Metropole on Northumberland Avenue, Strand, London with her sister Bessie and her widowed mother.^[2]

She married David de Beauvoir Stocks in London in 1909.

Flying[]

The new Mrs De Beauvoir Stocks trained at the Grahame-White flying school at Hendon.^[3] On 7 November 1911 she became only the second woman to gain a Royal Aero Club aviators certificate, passing her test using a Farman biplane at Hendon just three months after Hilda Hewlett became the first woman to earn the certificate.^[1][3]

Her portrait, Mrs. Cheridah de Beauvoir Stocks, painted by John William Schofield was exhibited at the RBA, Autumn Exhibition in 1912.^[4]

Following an air crash during an airshow at Hendon in 1913, in which she was the passenger of Sydney Pickle. she was taken to Central London Sick Asylum.^[3] She was unconscious for six weeks and her recovery was closely followed by the newspapers of the day. Stocks was paralysed down her right side and never flew again.^[1][5]

Later life[]

Her husband David, a Commander in the Royal Navy, died on 31 January 1918 when the submarine HMS K4 was lost in an accident.^[1]

Stocks went on to study at Oxford in the 1920s and gained a BSc in Social Anthropology. She died on 1 May 1971 in Northampton aged 83.^[1]

References[]