England’s first woman of technology, Henrietta Vansittart, and how her invention revolutionized ship propeller design, excerpted from Inventing a Better Mousetrap: 200 Years of American History in the Amazing World of Patent Models
England’s First Woman Engineer
No woman epitomizes the idea of the new woman inventor more than Henrietta Vansittart (1833-1883) of Richmond, England. Henrietta is known as England’s first woman engineer, and her improvements in propeller design is probably the most important nautical invention by a woman of the 19th century.