Dorotheé Pullinger and the Galloway Car

Today's the day .........................for a pioneering automobile engineer 

We've just got back from a performance in Kirkcudbright by the Theatre Company, Cultural Connections - about the inspiring, Dorotheé Pullinger and the production of the Galloway Car.  It's a story very familiar to us because it actually took place just up the road from where we live.  I wrote about the remains of the factory and a bit of the story in a previous blip.

Dorotheé was born in France, the eldest of the eleven children of engineer Thomas Charles Pullinger (1867–1945) and Aurélie Berenice, née Sitwell (1871–1956). The family moved to the UK when she was eight and in 1910, she began work as a draftsperson  at the Paisley works of the celebrated Scottish automobile firm of Arrol-Johnson, where her father, a well-known car designer, was Managing Director.

At the start of the 1st World War, Arrol-Johnson changed from producing cars to aero-engines. In 1916, at the tender age of 22, she was appointed female supervisor of the large munitions facility operated by Vickers in Barrow-in-Furness where women were employed in the manufacture of high explosive shells. It was around this time that her father created a new munitions facility for Arrol-Johnston at Tongland, near Kirkcudbright which included an engineering college for women and an apprenticeship program.

After the war, the Tongland Works was converted back to the manufacture of automobiles and renamed Galloway Motors Ltd.  Dorotheé was a Director and Manager – and under her direction, the company employed a largely female work force. They produced a car, designed specifically for women named - The Galloway - until 1923 when production was transferred to Arrol-Johnston's Heathhall Works in Dumfries.

She was a remarkable woman for many reasons - not least for all that she did to change attitudes towards equal opportunities for women in the workplace.  She deserves to be better known than she is ......................