Jane Trefusis Forbes
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox military person
|name= Jane Trefusis Forbes
|image= Portrait of WAAF Air Chief Commandant K J Trefusis Forbes, 24 May 1943. CH10253.jpg
|image_size= 250 px
|alt=
|caption= Jane Trefusis Forbes as Air Chief Commandant (1943)
|birth_name= Katherine Jane Trefusis Forbes
|birth_date= {{birth date|1899|03|21|df=yes}}
|birth_place= Taltal, Chile
|death_date= {{death date and age|1971|06|18|1899|03|21|df=yes}}
|death_place= London, England
|placeofburial= Holy Trinity Episcopal Churchyard, Pitlochry
|allegiance= United Kingdom
|branch= Women's Auxiliary Air Force
|serviceyears= 1939–1943
|rank= Air Chief Commandant
|servicenumber=
|unit=
|commands= Women's Auxiliary Air Force (1939–43)
|battles= Second World War
|awards= Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire
|spouse= Sir Robert Watson-Watt
|relations= James David Forbes (grandfather)
|laterwork=
}}
Air Chief Commandant Dame Katherine Jane Trefusis Forbes, Lady Watson-Watt, {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100|DBE}} (21 March 1899 – 18 June 1971),[https://de.findagrave.com/memorial/101927417/katherine-jane_trefusis-watson_watt Katherine Jane Trefusis Forbes Watson-Watt] at findagrave.com, 28. October 2020. known as Jane Trefusis Forbes, was a businesswoman and the first director of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (1939–43).
Career
Jane Trefusis Forbes had been Chief Instructor, Auxiliary Territorial Service School of Instruction in 1938. In 1936, Forbes, Helen Gwynne-Vaughan and Kitty Trenchard launched the Emergency Service, to train women and organise them to be prepared in case of war. There were probably fewer than 100 women in the organisation, which was not officially recognized. On 1 July 1939, three months before the beginning of the Second World War, she was appointed as Director of the WAAF in order "to advise the Air Member for Personnell [sic] on questions concerning the WAAF".[http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/womens_auxiliary_air_force.htm Profile], historylearningsite.co.uk; accessed April 2014.{{Failed verification|date=March 2020|reason=As of 2020 this source doesn't mention Forbes or this quote}}
Trefusis Forbes inherited "The Observatory" in Pitlochry in 1936, upon the death of her uncle, the physicist George Forbes. Early in the war she is said to have allowed the house to be used as a place for senior militarily personnel to have a few days respite – Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery is thought to have been among the guests. By 1943 there were 175,000 women in the ranks of the WAAF. In October 1943, she toured Canada to assess the Women's Division of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). She also toured India to investigate the possibility of employing women in the South East Asia Command. She retired in August 1944.[https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/online-exhibitions/women-of-the-air-force/air-chief-commandant-dame-katherine-trefusis-forbes/ "Air Chief Commandant Dame Katherine Trefusis-Forbes"], rafmuseum.org.uk; accessed 3 June 2021.
Honours
In January 1944, Trefusis Forbes was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). She had always been known by her second name, Jane, but on discovering that it would cost her a half crown to change her first name in order to become Dame Jane she decided that she would become Dame Katherine.[https://www.clan-forbes.org/people/Dame-Katherine-Jane-Trefusis-Forbes Dame Katherine Jane Trefusis Forbes] at clan-forbes.org, 28. October 2020.
Personal life
File:Holy Trinity Church - Perth Rd, Pitlochry, UK - August 2006.jpg
The youngest of six children of Edmund Batten Forbes (1847–1924), a civil engineer, and his wife, Charlotte Catherine Agnes (née Wauchope; died 1958), Katherine Jane Trefusis Forbes was born in Chile, where her father, the son of James David Forbes, eminent physicist, glaciologist, and principal of the University of St Andrews, was an engineer building the railroad from the coast to the interior.[https://www.clan-forbes.org/people/Dame-Katherine-Jane-Trefusis-Forbes Dame Katherine Jane Trefusis Forbes] at clan-forbes.org, 28 October 2020.
At one time engaged to a cousin who died mountaineering, she was unmarried until 1966, when she and Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt, who is credited with developing radar, married in London. They lived together in London in the winter, and at "The Observatory" (Trefusis Forbes' summer home in Pitlochry, Scotland) during the rest of the year. The couple met for the first time back during World War II when the WAAF was responsible for managing radar installations.[http://www.oxforddnb.com/templates/article.jsp?articleid=51971&back= Oxford DNB profile], oxforddnb.com; accessed 3 April 2014.
Death
Lady Watson-Watt died in 1971 in London, aged 72, after suffering a second heart attack. Her husband died two years later. [http://www.observatorypitlochry.com/kathrinebio.htm Both are interred in the churchyard at Pitlochry.]
References
{{ external media
| float = left
| width = 258px
| image1 = [https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/air-chief-commandant-dame-katherine-trefusis-forbes-18991971-135809 Portrait in oils of Air Chief Commandant Dame Katherine Trefusis Forbes]
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Forbes, Jane Trefusis}}
Category:Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Category:People from Kensington
Category:Military personnel from Perth and Kinross
Category:British expatriates in Chile
Category:Female air force generals and air marshals
Category:Women's Auxiliary Air Force officers