Dorothy Donaldson Buchanan

Dorothy Donaldson Buchanan (1899 to 1985), later known as Dorothy Fleming, was a Scottish civil engineer and the first woman to become a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, which she achieved in December 1927 after passing its admission examination. Born at Langholm in Dumfriesshire, she studied civil engineering at the University of Edinburgh and graduated in 1923. She trained under Sir Ralph Freeman and served on the design staff of Dorman Long for the Sydney Harbour Bridge, then worked on overseas bridges at Dessouk and Khartoum, on the Silent Valley Reservoir water supply scheme in Northern Ireland, and on the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle and Lambeth Bridge in London. She retired from engineering when she married in 1930, and in 2019 the Institution named a room at its London headquarters after her.