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Letitia Chitty (15 July 1897 – 29 September 1982) was an English engineer who became a respected structural analytical engineer, achieving several firsts for women engineers, including becoming the first female fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and the second female recipient of the Telford Medal.
Her Bradby relatives included uncle G. F. Bradby, author of The Lanchester Tradition (1919), and aunt Barbara Bradby joint author of The Village Labourer (1911). Cousins included the poet Anne Ridler.
Her godmother was Violet Jex-Blake, niece of the suffragist and first female medical graduate in the UK, Sophia Jex-Blake.
In her own words:
"Mr. Tarrant was an inspired timber merchant who dreamed of a super-Sopwith Camel. It hadn't a chance. It was too big, too heavy - that wasn't its fault, but Grade A spruce had by now run out and it had to be built of American white wood (tulip). In my language, 3,500 instead of 5,500 lb/sq in."
The plane pitched over during its first take-off at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough on 26 May 1919, killing both pilots and seriously injuring the other six people on board.
Her World War II work included research into stresses in submarine hulls under shell attack, extensible cables and pulley blocks for barrage balloons, for the Director of Scientific Research of the Admiralty and the Ministry of Supply. Later research interests included arches and arch dams - in particular, the Dukan Dam in Iraq - and she contributed to an international symposium on arched dams in 1968.
Initially an Imperial College research assistant, Chitty became a lecturer in 1937, and retired in 1962. She was the first female Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society (FRAeS), the third female Corporate Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers and the first woman to be appointed to an ICE technical committee, in 1958. She was awarded four Telford Premium medals for papers written with Pippard, and in 1969 became the first woman to receive the Telford Gold Medal.
She travelled widely and published a book, "Abroad. An alphabet of Flowers", in 1948, with her own drawings and notes about her holidays.
In her will, she left a bequest to Imperial College, which named its Library reading room after her. Imperial College also presents a Letitia Chitty Centenary Memorial Prize, while Newnham College has presented a 'Letitia Chitty Award for Engineering'.
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