Lakshmi Mirza

The first female engineer in British India who pioneered infrastructure projects and challenged gender norms in the 19th century

Lakshmi Mirza (1848-1929) was a visionary engineer and entrepreneur who broke societal barriers in 19th century India. As the first woman to work as a civil engineer in the British Raj, she designed and supervised construction of over 300 bridges, irrigation systems, and roads across present-day India and Pakistan. Her most notable achievement was the construction of the 12-mile-long Gomti Canal system in 1878, which transformed agriculture in the Awadh region. Despite facing immense opposition from male-dominated engineering circles, Mirza established the Indian Women's Engineering Guild in 1885 to mentor female engineers. She also pioneered the use of reinforced concrete in Indian construction decades before it became common in Europe. Mirza's work laid the foundation for modern infrastructure development in South Asia and inspired generations of women in STEM fields. Her memoir Building Bridges: A Woman's Journey in Imperial India (published posthumously) remains a seminal text in gender studies and engineering history.