The first woman architect practising in Britain

Last month, at a time when all paths quite rightly led to Glasgow's Cop26, people could be forgiven for missing a celebration of the City's High Street – 1500 years of history and its links to many key events and people. The form of this celebration is a heritage trail of 42 banners that tell the stories of the area's important people, landmarks and events.

Imagine my surprise to find my grandmother on one of these banners, only one of two women (the other being Mary Queen of Scots) in a total of 14 people, including such luminaries as James Watt, Adam Smith, Daniel Defoe.

I have always been very proud of my grandmother. Edith Burnet Hughes was married to Professor T Harold Hughes, niece to Sir J J Burnet and granddaughter to John Burnet. All three were renowned architects. That is not to say the men in her life defined her, and she would not be on a banner in the High Street of Glasgow, it just gives some context.

She is generally recognised as the first practising women architect in Britain and was the first female tutor in higher education in Scotland (1915). She was appointed as a lecturer in the history of art and architecture at the Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen, now part of Robert Gordon University. She was also the first woman to win an open architectural competition with the Coatbridge War Memorial (1924), winning her first commission in 1916.

In 1927, a year before women got the vote, she became the first woman nominated for membership of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). However, RIBA's legal advisers stated that she could not be elected, and RIBA remained an all-male institution until 1938. Edith was similarly denied access to the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS), eventually becoming the first female member, elected as an Honorary Fellow in 1968, three years before her death.

She worked as a sole practitioner for most of her life, not retiring until she was in her late 70s. Most of her work was domestic, although she did undertake work for both St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh and Dunblane Cathedral.

She was the main reason I went to study in Scotland, but she died two months before I got there. My education would have been so much richer if she had been around.

Nick Lomax