Ellice Nosworthy

Ellice Maud Nosworthy (25 February 1897 – 7 January 1972) was an Australian practising architect for approximately 50 years and graduated as one of Australia's first female architects in 1922.

Early life and education Nosworthy, was a second of four daughters of Robert Nosworthy, who originated from England.

Career Ellice was employed (1922–23) by Waterhouse & Lake, where she worked on the drawings for houses in Sydney, and she became the first woman registered as an architect on 26 June 1923 in New South Wales. Nosworthy made several extensive study and working trips to North America and Britain between 1929 and 1938; and was employed by the Department of the Interior during World War II. During World War II, Nosworthy also worked for the Allied Works Council.

It was between the 1920s and the 1970s that she became a member of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), later being elevated to Fellow status for both. In the late 1950s she collaborated with Wilkinson on additions to St Andrew's College, University of Sydney. The peninsula was the setting for other iconic works of the 20th-century residential architecture by Australian architects, including Nosworthy herself.

The Women's College Reid wing was designed by Nosworthy along with, common and music rooms in a two storied face brickwork and terracotta-tiled addition. Due to the financial constraints of post-war conditions, aluminium-framed windows were a necessary addition instead of traditional timber-hung sashes, followed by her additions to the Williams Wing and Staff accommodation on the Campus. In 1960 Leslie Wilkinson and Nosworthy added a new dining call to St Andrew's College which included a spacious Junior common room below, situated between St Andrew's North Wing and Missenden road.

As one of the interwar generation of women architects, Norsworthy along with other significant Australians, made a significant contribution to Australian architecture, from domestic projects through to large institutional and industrial complexes, demonstrating what A.G. Stephenson had stated 'there's nothing in architecture a man can do that a woman can't do'.

1922 and 1923: Worked for Waterhouse & Lake. 1942: Four blocks of community housing for the Kuringgai Older Peoples's Welfare Association. 1945: Childcare centres for the Sydney Day Nursery & Nursery Schools Association at Erskineville. 1950: The Kuringgai Municipal Council at Gordon and alterations to St Andrew's College at the university. 1955: Childcare centres for the Sydney Day Nursery & Nursery Schools Association at Newtown. 1956: She conducted her practice from her own home, built to her specifications in her parents' orchard. 1959–1960: Nosworthy made additions to Williams Wing of The Women's College. 1960: St Andrew's College, Nosworthy and Professor Leslie Wilkinson cleverly inserted a new dining hall seating over 300, with a spacious Junior Common Room below. 1960: Community housing for the Kuringgai Old People's Welfare Association. 1960s: A late but major project in the 1960s was the design of 'Arrunga', four blocks of the flats for single elderly people for the Kuringgai Old People's Welfare Association (KOPWA) at Lindfield, New South Wales, a rare and still successful community-based housing initiative. Historian Bronwyn Hanna notes the project is an important example of the ability of design to contribute to local communities.

Achievements Nosworthy was one of the first eight graduates of the Faculty of Architecture and one of its first three women graduates, graduating with a Bachelor of Architecture in 1922.

While a student at the university, she was treasurer of the Sydney University Women's Undergraduates Association Committee in 1918, and lived at the Women's College, where she won the Dickinson Cup for tennis in 1919 and in 1921. She was one of two architects to be the first registered in New South Wales when registration began in June 1923 and one of the first women to set up their own architectural practices.