Described by composer Ethel Smyth as brilliant, sociable, amusing and utterly original, Clotilde Brewster defied all the odds by becoming the first woman to work internationally as an architect. She was part of a group of pioneering women in the late nineteenth century who broke down barriers in their chosen professions, including the Garretts: in fact, Agnes Garrett (interior decorator) and her sister Millicent Garrett-Fawcett (founder of Newnham College) guided and aided Clotilde at the start of her life and career in England. Clotilde -Cloto- Brewster (1874-1937) was born in France to an expatriate American father and an aristocratic German mother. Multilingual and cosmopolitan in her ideas and actions, she spent most of her life in continental Europe before settling in Britain. Her early training was in Florence, Italy where she was mentored by architects Adolf Hildebrand and Emanuel La Roche. Aged 18, Clotilde was chosen to exhibit her work at the 1893 World-s Columbian Exhibition
