%0 Journal Article
%T Engineering and the family in business: Blanche Coules Thornycroft, naval architecture and engineering design
%A Keith Harcourt
%A Roy Edwards
%D 2018
%V 
%N Autumn 2018
%K design
%K engineering
%K family business
%K ship
%K testing tank
%K Thornycroft
%K Women
%X This paper seeks to examine and contextualise the role of Blanche Thornycroft within her family business of John I. Thornycroft in the first half of the twentieth century. The role of Blanche in assisting her father and, after his death, the Thornycroft Company in collecting experimental data informed the design of many vessels. Her role in testing Coastal Motor Boats is explored using the archival material discovered during the ARHC funded project ‘Business, government and the workplace: John I. Thornycroft & Company Limited, and the Great War’.
%Z See also Horrell and Humphries (1995), Sarasúa and Gálvez (2003), Gálvez and Fernández (2007), Solà (2008), Humphries and Sarasúa (2012), Schmidt and van Nederveen (2012), Borderías (2013), and Zucca (2014).

%Z Crichton (1991, p 33) and Ferreiro (2007, pp 150–151) explore the early modern antecedents to ship hull design. Bailey (1995, pp 1–10) details early testing techniques.

%Z The Institution of Naval Architects abbreviated hereafter as INA was founded originally in 1860 and received its first Royal Charter in 1910 and its second in 1960. However, the Institution did not add the prefix ‘Royal’ until its centenary in 1960. Today it is known as the Royal Institution of Naval Architects and abbreviated as RINA.

%Z It is Tom’s personal archive, held at the Hampshire Cultural Trust that was the subject of the AHRC project and from which the initial links into Blanche’s life were found.

%Z Thanks to John Jeffries of the Classic Boat Museum, the authors were able to spend some time with John Thornycroft Margetson and we were granted access to the tank building, which is not open to the public.

%Z Tom Thornycroft Collection – Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester

%Z Tom Thornycroft Collection, Box 239 – Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester

%Z Historic England https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1426608 (accessed 10 September 2018)

%Z John E Thornycroft. ‘Curves’ JET/ALG. 20/05/1935. Tom Thornycroft Collection – Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester

%Z Blanche C Thornycroft. Note book Wire Hawsers 1916–1917. P1. Box ARCH 080. Classic Boat Museum Archive, East Cowes

%Z Agar’s vessel survives in an unseaworthy state at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford.

%Z Blanche C Thornycroft, ‘Women Inventors – Miss Thornycroft’s correction’, The Daily Post, January 1919. Cutting in the Tom Thornycroft Collection. Box 63 Item 1b Hampshire Cultural Trust.

%Z Gillis-Donovan, J and Moynihan-Bradt, C, 1990, ‘The power of invisible women in the family business’, Family Business Review 3 (2), p 153. DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-6248.1990.00153.x

%Z Sir John E Thornycroft. Box 291_1. The Tom Thornycroft Archive. Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester

%Z R W Dana Letter to Sir John I Thornycroft. Box 43. The Tom Thornycroft Archive. Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester

%Z Sir John Isaac Thornycroft. Letter to Miss B Thornycroft MINA. Box 44. The Tom Thornycroft Archive. Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester

%Z Sir John E Thornycroft. Ref JET. ALG. 22. The Tom Thornycroft Archive. Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester

%Z Sir John E Thornycroft. Ref. JET.ALG.17. The Tom Thornycroft Archive. Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester

%Z The Motor Yacht Trenora Graces Guide www.gracesguide.co.uk/images/2/27/Im1933EnV156-p109.jpg (accessed 20 September 2018)

%Z K C Barnaby. Trenora – Owners (sic) Launch, 20 November 1933. Ref. KCB/NR The Tom Thornycroft Archive. Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester

%Z E Gerald Stanley. ‘Untitled’, 20 November 1933. Ref. ORK. The Tom Thornycroft Archive. Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester

%Z K C Barnaby. Letter to Miss B. Thornycroft. 18 December 1933. Ref. KCB. The Tom Thornycroft Archive. Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester

%Z K C Barnaby. Letter to Miss B. Thornycroft. 14 January 1934. Ref. KCB/RH. The Tom Thornycroft Archive. Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester

%Z Dumas, C, 1992, ‘Integrating the daughter into family business management’, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 16 4, pp 41–56

%I The Science Museum Group
%@ 2054-5770
%B eng
%U https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/article/blanche-thornycroft/
%J Science Museum Group Journal