Edith Maud Cook

Edith Maud Cook was born here on 1st September.

She was a balloonist, a parachutist and on the RAF Museum website is stated as the first woman pilot in the United Kingdom. She had made hundreds of balloon ascents; demonstrated the use of parachutes for ten years before making solo flights in 1910. She did not obtain a pilot's licence.

On 11th July 1910 as reported in The Times: “Miss Viola Spencer (a pseudonym) in a parachute descent at Coventry on Saturday, alighted on a factory roof … Miss Spencer fell onto the roadway injuring herself severely.” Edith died on 14th July as a result of her injuries.

In her book Before Amelia Eileen Lebow relates accounts of women pioneer aviators: Edith Maud Cook is praised there as an adventurer and a very courageous woman.

The plaque was unveiled in July 2007 by Christopher Brown a great nephew of Cook.