Special Achievements

• 20 March 1928 - First woman in Victoria to receive an 'A' Pilot's Licence and the sixth in Australia.
• 1929 - First Australian woman to qualify as a ground engineer.
• 1940 - First head of Women's Air Training Corps (branch formed in each state).

Learnt to fly in England; received Grade A private pilot's licence, April 1927 - converted British Licence.

Image - Mary "Paddy" Bell

Description: Meeting of the Australian Council of the Women's Air Training Corps (WATC); detail of Mrs J.R. Bell Date: 12 June 1941 Source: Image: State Library of Victoria. Gift of The Age (Melbourne, Vic.), 1976. Date: per Thomson, Joyce (1991) The WAAAF in Wartime Australia, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, pp. 84–85 ISBN: 0522845258. Author: The Argus, Melbourne (Argus Newspaper Collection of Photographs, State Library of Victoria) Permission: Per details of image at source, this was gift of The Age newspaper to the State Library and "No copyright restrictions apply ... This work is out of copyright" Other versions: File:An008038WATC.jpg

Wikimedia Commons: File:An008038WATCBellCropped.jpg

Wikipedia. “Mary Bell (aviator)”. accessed 23 December 2019.