Beatrice Marsinah (Neison) Mackinnon (1912-1997)

She was born in Reigate, Surrey, the daughter of Cuthbert Gordon Neison, of London. Described as a society girl, at the age of nineteen she became the youngest female pilot to get the coveted 'B' commercial pilot's licence. In 1933, she tried to raise finance for a solo flight to Australia in a Comper Mouse to beat the existing world record, but did not. She sailed to California in 1936 to visit her friend Russell Pratt and in New York in 1937 she met her first husband, H. Lyman Stebbins, and they were married that same year in St. George's, Hanover Square, London. They lived in New York but divorced and in 1947 she married Angus Mackinnon and remained for the rest of her life in England at their home, Hunton Manor in Sutton Scotney, Hampshire.