Roberta Cowell, (born 21 May 1921 in Croydon), was the first known British male-to-female transsexual to undergo sex reassignment surgery.
Born Robert Cowell, she was a Spitfire pilot in World War II and a racing driver after the war. She had a vaginoplasty on 15 May 1951, via a surgical method invented and performed by Dr Harold Gillies. This occurred two years before Christine Jorgensen's surgery in Denmark. Roberta Cowell's surgical transformation and friendship with the female-to-male transsexual Michael Dillon, also operated on by Dr Harold Gillies, is documented in the book "The First Man-Made Man" by Pagan Kennedy [1].