Elisabeth Whitworth Scott, architect, was born in 1898 to parents Bernard Scott and Lydia Margaret (née Whitworth) in Bournemouth, England. She attended the Architectural Association School in Bedford Square, London, from which she graduated in 1924. In 1928, her design proposal for a Shakespeare Memorial Theatre was unanimously selected by an international prize commission from among 72 submissions, making her the first woman to win a major architectural competition in Britain. The commission was completed in 1932.

Before World War II, Scott's firm (Scott, Chesterton, and Shepherd; later Scott, Shepherd, and Breakwell) was responsible for the Fawcett Building at Newnham College, Cambridge, in addition to several schools , residences, and a hospital alteration. After the war Scott primarily practiced in Bournemouth, where she re-designed the pavilions on Bournemouth and Boscombe piers. She retired in 1968.

Scott was also a member of the Fawcett Society, previously the London Society for Women's Suffrage, an advocacy organization that campaigns for gender equality.

She died on June 19, 1972.

Sources:

Stamp, Gavin. "Scott, Elisabeth Whitworth (1898–1972), architect." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. October 24, 2019. Oxford University Press. Date of access 30 Apr. 2024, https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-53117