Florence Mary Taylor b. 1879

  • Architect
Florence Mary Taylor CBE OBE was Australia's first qualified woman architect, structural engineer and civil engineer. With her husband, architect-engineer-aviator George Taylor, she edited and published Building and Engineering and other trade journals, and town planning books, including visionary schemes for Sydney's future development.

Florence Taylor (1879-1969) was the first woman architect, structural engineer and civil engineer in Australia. For her contribution to architecture and civil engineering, Taylor was appointed an Officer of the British Empire on 8 June 1939 and a Commander of the British Empire on 10 June 1961. After her father died prematurely, she began clerical work at an architecture and engineering office, then enrolled in evening classes teaching architectural drafting at Sydney Technical College, where she was the only female in the class. Between 1900 and 1902 she was apprenticed to Sydney architect Edmund Garton, where she was allocated menial tasks. In 1902 she transferred to the office of John Burcham Clamp where she remained until she completed her studies in 1907. In that year her employer Clamp nominated her for associate membership of the New South Wales Institute of Architects. Her membership was granted 13 years later in 1920. On 3 April 1907, she married George Augustine Taylor, an architect-engineer, whose hobbies included aviation and gliding. Florence Taylor, who shared her husband’s interests, became the first woman to attempt a glider flight in Australia, on 5 December 1909. She flew from the Narrabeen sand hills near Sydney, in a guilder built by her husband, to became the first woman to fly a heavier-than-air machine in Australia. After their marriage the Taylors established their own company, the Building Publishing Company, a producer of trade and professional journals. Also the Taylors were founding members of the Town Planning Association in New South Wales in 1913. After her husband’s death in 1928, she continued to manage the company until her own death in 1951, although she scaled down the publishing list. Throughout her life Taylor continued to produce town planning schemes.
Sources
—Australian Women website http://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/IMP0064b.htm
Sources used to compile the entry: Christa Ludlow in 200 Australian Women Heather Radi (ed.), Who’s Who in Australia, 1968, Victorian Women’s Roll of Honour: Women Shaping the Nation and http://www.iwri.unisa.edu.au/recenthighlights.htm

Writers:
Staff Writer
Davina Jackson
Date written:
1995
Last updated:
2015