Sophy Higgins is a Collaborative Doctoral Award student at the Freeman Air and Space Institute (King’s College London) and the Royal Air Force Museum. She holds an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded Research Studentship, awarded by the London Arts and Humanities Partnership. 

Sophy holds an MA in Early Modern History and a BA (Hons) in History from King’s College. 

Research Project Summary:

Thesis title: The influence of elite women on the development of the Royal Air Force and the culture of aviation in the interwar years. 

Sophy's project will explore the ways in which gender intersected with high society class structures to influence the development of the RAF in its early years. It takes a case study approach to consider how class underpinned women’s access to and influence towards various aspects of the service and aviation circles.

It aims to reframe historical narratives of the RAF to explore the ways in which these women actively shaped the organisational and social culture of the institution, helping to consolidate the RAF’s survival in the inter-war period.

PhD supervisors

• Dr David Jordan
• Professor David Edgerton
• Dr Harry Raffal (Royal Air Force Museum)