Elizabeth Denby

Elizabeth Denby (1894 – 3 November 1965) was an English social housing expert and consultant.

Biography Denby was from Bradford, Yorkshire, the daughter of a doctor. She went to Bradford Girls Grammar School and then studied at the London School of Economics.

In 1931 Denby was the organising chair of the first "New Homes for Old" exhibit held at Methodist Central Hall (and subsequently as part of the biennial Building Trades Exhibition at Olympia between 1932 and 1938). In 1934/35 she held a Leverhulme Research Fellowship into low cost housing in Europe. In 1936 she addressed a sessional meeting of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) on her paper on 'Rehousing from the Slum Dweller's point of view', becoming the first women to do so.

After travelling around Europe she published a book entitled "Europe Rehoused". She is credited with prompting Fry to adopt a more progressive style. Denby's work to create more affordable living for the working class eventually resulted in houses that appeared cheap and unrealistic.

Denby demonstrated her interest in social housing during World War II when she lived in London. In May 1942 she organised with Noel Carrington an exhibition "Living in Houses" in London, a sequel to the successful exhibition "Living in Cities" held the previous year, showing solutions to the problem of providing, after the War, new houses "suitable and convenient for the ordinary man and his wife and children". On 27 March 1943 Denby gave a talk in the National Gallery on "The homes we want".