Henry Smith has written to the Secretary of the Three Bridges Forum, Gill Cooban, with regard to Dame Caroline Haslett.

Please click the link below to read the letter.

20th September 2018

Dear Gill

My thanks to the Three Bridges Forum for its effort in establishing a memorial to Dame Caroline Haslett, whose work in the field of engineering as well as her campaigning for equality for women places her as one of Crawley’s pioneers.

I welcome the establishment of the Caroline Haslett Memorial Project (CHaMP) sub-committee, and exhibition currently on display at Crawley Library.

While many of Dame Caroline’s achievements came in her career of engineering; in this centenary year of the first women being given the right to vote, it is incumbent on us to also remember her campaigning for women’s suffrage, including at a protest outside the House of Commons in 1914!

As you will know, Dame Caroline was President of the Women’s Engineering Society between 1940 and 1941, in addition to becoming the organisation’s first Secretary, and served as President of the International Federation of Business & Professional Women. Her local contributions include her work on the Crawley Development Corporation, helping establish the New Town we know today.

While eponymous tributes to Dame Caroline include those outside our borough’s boundaries; it is right and fitting for wider recognition of her work, in the town which proudly knows her as one of Crawley’s own.

Henry Smith
Member of Parliament
Crawley Constituency