Born in South Africa but raised in multiple countries, Maude Bonney was educated in Melbourne, Australia and then in Germany.
While growing up, Maude preferred to be called by her adopted name of Lores.
When she was at finishing school in Germany, Lores met a leather goods manufacturer named Harry Barrington Bonney and the pair fell for each other and married in 1917.
They went on to make their marital home in Brisbane, Queensland.
Her life changed forever when she met an aviator from Queensland named Burt Hinkler, who was a record-holder.
He had flown various long-haul flights, but broke records with non-stop flights from England to Latvia, and then England and Australia in the 1920s.
Inspired by Hinkler, Bonney took up flying lessons in secret, not telling her husband.
However, when Harry found out, he bought her a plane of her own to fly.
From here, Lores began to make record-breaking flights on her own.
In 1931, she flew from Brisbane to Wangaratta in the longest one-day flight a female aviator had ever done, followed by a Round-Australia trip in 1932 which made her the first woman to circumnavigate the Australian mainland in the air.
However, her most notable achievement came in 1933 when Lores flew from Brisbane to Croydon in the UK – a 20,000km journey across the world. It took 157 hours – almost a full week.
Bonney was awarded as a Member of the Order of the British Empire by King George V for her success, with the Bonney Trophey in England still being awarded to outstanding British female pilots today.
Eventually getting a new aircraft in the Klemm L32-V VH-UVE, she also completed the first flight from Australia to South Africa in 1937.
World War Two soon put a stop to her career, however, despite her plans for flights all around, with one plane even being destroyed in a fire in 1939 and the other being scrapped after use in the war.
In 1991, Lores was made a Member of the Order of Australia.
Lores passed away in Miami, Queensland, in 1994 at the grand age of 96.
Google has honoured her today with a Google Doodle on what would have been her 122nd birthday.
Maude “Lores” Bonney (November 20 1897 – February 24 1994)
