{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2021}} {{Short description| Naval architect in the UK}} {{Infobox person | name = Susan Mary Auld | other_names = Susan Denham Christie | birth_date = {{Birth date|1915|01|10}} | birth_place = Tynemouth | death_date = {{Death date and age|2002|03|09|1915|01|10}} | death_place = Newcastle upon Tyne | education = Cheltenham Ladies College Durham University | occupation = Naval Architect }} '''Susan Mary Auld''' (10 January 1915 – 9 March 2002), born '''Susan Denham Christie''' in Tynemouth, was the first woman to graduate as a naval architect from Durham University.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/tyneside-shipbuilding-history-saved-dumpster-1404893|title = Tyneside shipbuilding history is saved from dumpster|date = 27 September 2011}}</ref>
== Family background and education == Susan Auld came from a family of naval engineers. Her grandfather Charles John Denham Christie (1830–1905) was a founder of the company that later became the Swan Hunter Group of shipyards, and her father John Denham Christie (''d''. 1950) was company chairman for many years. Her mother was Mary Martin.<ref name=":0" />
She received home schooling until the age of 14, when she was sent to Cheltenham Ladies' College.<ref name=":0">{{Cite ODNB|last=Baker|first=Anne Pimlott|title=Auld [née Christie], Susan Mary [known as Susan Denham Christie] (1915–2002), naval architect|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-76749|access-date=2019-06-27|year=2004|language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/76749}}</ref> In 1932 she began to study naval architecture under Sir Westcott Abell at Durham University and graduated with a BSc in 1936, the first English woman to be awarded a degree in naval architecture (but see Dorothy Rowntree). She was also the first woman to be admitted as a student member to the North East Coast Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders (October 1932),<ref name=":0" /> although Katherine Parsons had been made an honorary fellow in 1919.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=1919|title=Honorary Fellowship (Lady Parsons)|journal=Transactions of the North-East Coast Institution of Engineers and Ship-Builders.|volume=35}}</ref>
== Career == Susan Denham Christie joined the design office of Swan, Hunter, and Wigham Richardson at the Neptune yard on Tyneside, at a time when very few women were employed in the shipbuilding industry, and she went on to be a pioneering architect for the Royal Navy.<ref name=":0" /> ''The Woman Engineer'' reported in 1942 that "Lloyd's List of 25th February contained news of the only '''woman ship designer''' in the country. She is Miss S. M. Denham Christie..." and that she had recently been admitted as an Associate Member of the North East Coast Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=March 1942|title=News in Brief|url=http://www2.theiet.org/resources/library/archives/research/wes/WES_Vol_5.html|journal=The Woman Engineer|volume=5|pages=158}}</ref> During the Second World War Susan Denham Christie was involved in the design of the battleship HMS ''Anson'', launched in 1940, and the aircraft carrier HMS ''Albion'', launched in 1947 (the keel of which was laid down in 1944).<ref name=":0" /> She also worked on the design of floating vessels used to land Allied troops in France on D-Day in 1944.<ref>"Susan Auld" obituary from ''The Scotsman'', Edinburgh newspaper, dated 16 March 2002 http://news.scotsman.com/obituaries/Susan-Auld.2310431.jp</ref><ref>Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, New Lives and themes 2002 http://www.oup.com/oxforddnb/info/prelims/contents/06a/newlives/</ref>
After the war Susan Denham Christie worked on commercial and cargo shipbuilding. She was a member of the team that designed the ''Leda'', which ferried passengers between Tyneside and Norway.<ref name=":0" />
== Personal life == In 1952 she married an electrical engineer, John Gwynne Auld. Although she gave up her career as a naval architect when she married, for many years she was a correspondent for ''The Shipyard'' magazine, the in-house company magazine of Swan, Hunter, and Wigham Richardson.<ref name=":0" />
Susan Auld died in Newcastle upon Tyne on 9 March 2002.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=North Tyneside shipbuilder honoured with a blue plaque on Trafalgar Day |url=https://my.northtyneside.gov.uk/news/30891/north-tyneside-shipbuilder-honoured-blue-plaque-trafalgar-day}}</ref>
== Commemoration == A blue plaque was unveiled to honour Susan Auld at 12 Northumberland Terrace in Tynemouth on 21 October 2022 by North Tyneside Council and heritage charity The Common Room.<ref name=":1" />
== References == <references/>
== Further reading == *{{cite ODNB|author=Anne Pimlott Baker|title=Auld , Susan Mary (1915–2002)|date=January 2006|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/76749|access-date=14 April 2009|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/76749}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Auld, Susan Mary}} Category:1915 births Category:2002 deaths Category:British naval architects Category:People from Tynemouth Category:Engineers from Tyne and Wear Category:20th-century British women engineers Category:Alumni of Armstrong College, Durham