Pioneering Design: Gertrude Leverkus, Women’s Pioneer Housing architect

Gertrude Leverkus was the first woman to graduate with a BA from the Bartlett School of Architecture at UCL, in 1918. At that time, UCL offered the only architecture course open to women. After passing the examinations of the Royal Institute of British Architecture (RIBA), she became one of the first three women to become an elected associate of RIBA and she was made a Fellow of the Institute in 1931. Gertrude’s determination to succeed in the intensely masculine world of architecture

Born into a liberal family in 1898, Gertrude was one of a talented trio of sisters: her eldest sister Elsie became an artist and the youngest, Dorothy, qualified in medicine in 1927 from UCL and the London Medical School for Women. Feminist principles and a sense of solidarity were important to Gertrude throughout her life. In 1932 she established the Women’s Committee of the RIBA to promote the interests of women architects. She spoke at a 1939 dinner hosted by the Suffragette Fellowship to mark the 21^st anniversary of women’s enfranchisement, where she advocated for architecture as a viable career for women.

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Gertrude was appointed to work for Women’s Pioneer Housing in 1923. Following an interview with the Committee of Management, she was asked to undertake the conversion of 62 Ladbroke Grove into 8 flats at an inclusive fee of 5.5%. The following year, Committee member Vernon Ory noted that ‘Miss Leverkus is the architect to the Society and therefore no other architect should be employed without the special sanction of the Committee of Management’. In January 1925 Gertrude asked for payment of future work at the rate of 6% on all conversions and alterations made by her for Women’s Pioneer Housing. Her fees remained at 6% until 1934, when she was then paid a retaining fee of £100 per annum to cover all repairs and general upkeep work. 

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Gertrude also became a WPH tenant, following the death of her mother in 1930. She resided at 65 Harrington Gardens until her retirement in 1960. Gertrude’s personal experience as a professional, independent woman no doubt informed her work and gave her an insight into the needs of women like her. In this way, she was an essential part of WPH’s mission through the 1920s and 1930s.

Gertrude died in 1989, after a long, inspiring career. Alongside her work at WPH, she had played a key role in post-war housing development in the London Borough of West Ham and for Crawley and Harlow New Towns. Gertrude’s work on the design of a new outpatients’ department wing for the Annie McCall Maternity Hospital (which opened in 1930) was another significant achievement in her feminist practice: the involvement of a female architect in the expansion of the hospital in the 1930s underscores its special social history as a landmark place in the women’s movement.