Elisabeth Scott

Elisabeth Whitworth Scott (20 September 1898 – 19 June 1972) was a British architect who designed the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon, England.

[4][5] In 1927, a competition for a replacement to the burnt-out Shakespeare Memorial Theatre was announced and Scott entered, with a confidence in her own abilities taken from the sound theoretical grounding at the Architectural Association's school.

[9] Sir Edward Elgar, then 75, was to be the theatre's new musical director but, after visiting the building, he so was furiously angry with that "awful female" and her "unspeakably ugly and wrong" design that he would have nothing further to do with it, refusing even to go inside.

[11] On the other hand, dramatist George Bernard Shaw (a member of the SMT committee notwithstanding his earlier telegram of congratulations to its chairman on having the unsuitable old building burnt down)[12] was a firm supporter of Scott's design as the only one to show any theatrical sense.

[6] Although most criticism was directed at the building's external form, in the auditorium the performers—although acknowledging that Scott had been at the mercy of her theatrical advisors: William Bridges-Adams, Barry Jackson and stage designer Norman Wilkinson (1882–1934, since 1920 a governor of the SMT[13])—found that it was curiously difficult to connect with their audience: evidently the large, plain expanse of the cream-painted side walls had the effect of diffusing attention from the stage.

[3] In 1924, when Scott entered practice, there were no prominent women architects and her selection for the project to rebuild the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre after it was destroyed by fire was only through her success in an international competition.

[20] She was by nature more of a quiet and practical feminist, ensuring that women were represented on her design projects and working through the Fawcett Society to promote wider acceptance.

In November 2015 it was announced Elisabeth Scott would be one of only two prominent British women (the other being Ada Lovelace) to be featured in the design of the new UK passport, to be used for the next 5 years.