Gertrude Martin

Gertrude Martin (21 November 1881 – 21 February 1952) was a British master mosaicist, one of the few women to succeed in this profession. She was baptised at St Peter's Church, Dulwich, on 18 January 1882

Career Gertrude Martin was apprenticed to George Bridge in 1902, In 1902 Bridge and his 26 women mosaicists began an extended period of work in Westminster Cathedral; Martin worked on the chapels of the Holy Souls, and of St Gregory and St Augustine (1902–4), and later on panels in the north transept and inner crypt (1910–11). She also worked under Bridge's direction at the grade-I-listed Church of St Mary and St Nicholas in Wilton, Wiltshire (1908–9), including mosaics in the apse.

From 1911, she started to work as a master craftswoman. Her early commissions were for Westminster Cathedral's lady chapel (1912–13), to designs by Robert Anning Bell. Her earliest design was for St Mary's Catholic Church in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire: The Annunciation (1914). She also completed more mosaics at St Mary and St Nicholas Church, Wilton (1913–20), but her work was interrupted by the First World War, during which she was employed as a clerk. After the war, she created mosaics in Westminster Cathedral's choir (1921–22). She also created mosaics at St John's Church, Angell Town, Brixton (1929), in honour of two of her brothers who had been killed during the First World War. After the Second World War, she did some further work at the lady chapel apse in Wilton (1946–48).

Personal life Martin did not marry. The family moved to Brixton in around 1903, where Martin spent much of her life, although in 1939, she was living with Dora in the village of Kilmington in Devon. Clementine Churchill, Winston Churchill's wife, organised for her to be awarded a pension from the civil list in her retirement.

Gertrude Martin died from heart failure at her home in St James's Crescent, Brixton on 21 February 1952. Her grave is in Lambeth Cemetery.