Pilar Careaga
Maria del Pilar Careaga Basabe was a Spanish politician and industrial engineer. She was the first woman to be mayor of Bilbao.Early life and education
The daughter of Pedro González de Careaga y Quintana, count of Cadagua, and Concepción Basabe y Zubiría, she was born in Madrid.
Careaga studied surveying and then completed her studies in industrial engineering at the Technical University of Madrid, becoming the first woman engineer in Spain.
She also became the first woman in Spain to drive a train.Politics
Pilar Careaga was an unsuccessful Renovación Española candidate for Biscay province in the Spanish election of 1933. At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, she was put in. She was freed in a prisoner exchange in September 1936.
She then travelled to the front in Madrid where she represented the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista, looking after injured Franco supporters. She returned to Bilbao after the war.
She was awarded the Roman Catholic Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice in 1958.
In 1959, she joined the Real Sociedad Bascongada de Amigos del País.
In 1964, she was named to the provincial council for the Movimiento Nacional, serving as the first woman deputy for Biscay from 1964 to 1969.
She served as mayor of Bilbao from 1969 to 1977.
On March 25, 1979, Careaga was shot six times by ETA whilst seated with her husband in her car driving to church in Guecho. This was the first time the organisation attempted to assassinate a woman. She survived but retired from public life.Personal life
In 1943, she married Enrique Lequerica Erquiza, an engineer who was the brother of José Félix de Lequerica y Erquiza.
Careaga died in Madrid at the age of 84.
