In 1926, while in Europe with her family, a 20 year-old woman from Victoria would have her first experience of air travel on a flight from Paris to London. She wrote in her dairy: ‘would go again if I could’.¹ Not only did Freda Thompson ‘go again’, she would go on to make history as a pioneering Australian aviator.

Freda Mary Thompson was born on 5 April 1906 at South Yarra, Melbourne. She was the elder daughter of Victorian-born parents Frederick Henry Thompson, gentleman, and his wife Martha, née Hollins.²

Freda Thompson, 1930, State Library of South Australia; SLSA [B 53577] 

In 1930, at 24 years of age, this young woman from South Yarra decided that she would train to be a pilot. She would go on to make history. Freda Thompson started taking lessons with the Royal Victoria Aero Club at Essendon under Eric Chator, her first instructor. She didn’t find flying to be an easy task, but after five weeks of training she was able to go on her first solo flight and when she landed safely, she knew she was no longer a beginner, but a true pilot. Still, she always advised her students:

Do not get too adventurous too soon. Accidents do not usually happen to careful beginners but to those who have become too daring. Do not think you know everything as any preconceived ideas about flying can be dangerous.³

In 1932 she obtained her commercial licence after 100 hours of solo flying. The following year she was examined for, and obtained, an instructor’s licence, being at that time the only woman in the British Commonwealth to hold one (1933).⁴ By the end of 1933 Freda had won six trophies, most importantly, the RW Harth Trophy for the most efficient pilot of the year and The Cobbham Trophy for the most successful pilot of the year.⁵

The Herald, 27 September 1933, p 11

It wasn’t easy for Freda to get there. Aviation was a ‘man’s world’ and her colleagues were strong believers that a woman can’t be a pilot. She had to work hard to prove them wrong and gain their respect, which she did in rather a short time. So when a member of the British Parliament stated that women pilots are ‘notoriously dangerous’, and that he would rather fly in formation with a winged dragon than with a woman pilot, Freda and her female colleagues were thoroughly defended by their male colleagues.⁶

In April 1934, Freda, her mother, and her sister made plans for an overseas trip to pick up the soon to be famous Tiger Moth plane, a present from her father, made by De Havilland Company in Middlesex.

Training air craft of the R.A.A.F., [ca. 1940-ca. 1944]. Argus Newspaper Collection of War Photographs Melbourne. H99.206/2391

She had 3 months in London to prepare for the journey back to Melbourne, scheduled for September 1934. The Shell company obtained suitable maps for her prospective route, as well as visas and permits for the countries over which she would be flying. They also looked out for alternative landing sites in case she was diverted by bad weather and organised that their agents would have 44-gallon drums of gasoline waiting for her at every major stop.⁷

On 28 September 1934 Freda took off. She departed England at half past ten in the morning, on a blue-sky day, the first Australian girl to attempt the trip of 12,700 miles alone was up in the sky and ready for the adventure, for the unknown.⁸ The sky was the limit!

The Herald, 7 November 1934, p 5

‘Some people…are given a restless spirit which drives them to see other countries – a spirit of adventure and the attraction of the unknown,’⁹ she would disclose in the small diary, in which she kept a record of her trip.

The very first leg of the trip turned out to be quite romantic. After failing to reach her planned destination due to a storm, Freda had to land on a private property somewhere near Lyon, France. The owners of the land welcomed her and pampered her with delicious food and exceptional wine. On the other hand, people waiting for her in Marseilles were very concerned with what might have happened to her. She made it to Marseilles the next day thanks to much-improved weather, then went on to Rome. From there she flew to Greece, where, while landing in the dark in the town of Megara, she ran into an olive tree. Her plane was damaged which led her to believe that she would not make it to Australia as quickly as she intended. She had to stay in Greece for three weeks before her plane was ready to take off again. Her diary tells us that she loved her time in Greece and that departing felt ‘like leaving home again’. ¹⁰

Damascus in Syria was next, then Baghdad in Iraq, Basra in Persia (Iran today), Karachi in Pakistan, Jodhpur and Allahabad in India, and Yangon (Rangoon) in Myanmar. Freda took her time to enjoy the trip. A record breaking time was already a lost cause, due to the incident in Greece. So, she decided to dance, enjoy the local cuisines and wines.

From Myanmar though, things turned rough. The leg to Singapore was known as a tough one because of the weather. And tough it was. It rained so much that the cockpit was half inundated, and Freda was scared that the plane could be flipped or go into a spin. From there off to Batavia (Jakarta today) in Indonesia.¹¹

At 6am she climbed into her plane. Ahead lay 800km of water and at the end, Australia. She landed in Darwin on 6 November, 39 days after leaving England with 20 days spent in Greece.¹² But nothing mattered now; after all she was the first Australian woman to fly solo from England to Australia.¹³ This was just the beginning of an adventurous life up above the clouds.

Freda was the first woman in the Commonwealth to obtain an instructor’s license and the first Australian woman to fly from England to Australia by herself. More proof that courage and determination don’t have a gender, and we are lucky to have these examples and these stories to inspire us and keep us strong.

Fredda [Freda] Thompson [from South Yarra, Victoria], [ca. 1966], Herald & Weekly Times Limited Portrait Collection; H38849/4535

References

1. Dennis V (2006) ‘Freda Mary Thompson‘, Australian Dictionary of Biography [website], accessed 25 March 2026.
2. As above
3. Palmer J (1986) Goggles and God help you: pioneer airwoman Freda Thompson OBE and some of her contemporaries, J Palmer, Benalla, p 15.
4. Victorian Government (2001) Freda Thompson OBE, Victorian Government [website], accessed 30 March 2026.
5. Palmer J (1986) Goggles and God help you: pioneer airwoman Freda Thompson OBE and some of her contemporaries, J Palmer, Benalla, p 22
6. As above, p 20
7. As above, p 29
8. As above, p 34
9. As above, p 34
10. As above, p 42
11. As above
12. Dennis V (2006), ‘Freda Mary Thompson‘, Australian Dictionary of Biography [website], accessed 25 March 2026
13. ‘Freda Thompson in Melbourne‘, (7 December 1934), The Daily Telegraph, accessed 19 March 2026.