Irene Barclay (1894-1989): the extraordinary career of the first woman chartered surveyor, and the development of the housing management profession

Abstract

ABSTRACT The lives and careers of early medical doctors have long been studied, and early women lawyers have been the subject of considerable academic and professional activity particularly in the years leading up to the centenary of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919, but comparatively little attention has been paid to early chartered surveyors. This paper introduces Irene Barclay, the first woman to qualify as a chartered surveyor, in 1922. Her family background informed her politics and ethos and her career choice will be set against a consideration of the career options available, the preparation for a professional life laid by Octavia Hill’s house manager training system and the development and professionalisation of housing management after Hill’s death. Barclay’s place in urging and mentoring other women to professional qualification is reviewed, along with the role of professional and women’s networks. The paper draws on Barclay’s work in the public and private sector (simultaneously) over a career lasting from just after World War I until her retirement in 1972 and finds that, after the opportunities opened from 1919, the progress of women in chartered surveying was, into the twenty-first century, still very slow and continues to be low (with on 15% female in 2020).