ELSIE WINTERTON
1897-1984
Engineer and draughtswoman for GWR
Born in Reading in 1897, Elsie was one of nine children born to Rose and Joseph
Winterton, a biscuit factory labourer for Huntley & Palmer. They were living at
112 Cumberland Road, Reading in the 1901, 1911 and 1921 censuses. At 24 Elsie
was working as a tracer and draughtswoman in the GWR Signal Department in
Reading, for example creating wiring diagrams of electronic railway signalling
appliances.
She became the first woman member of the UK’s Institution of Railway Signal
Engineers (IRSE) in 1923” and “through her work at GWR and involvement with
the IRSE, she met her husband, Edward Charles Deacon, and they were married
in Caversham in 1930. As was usual at the time, she gave up her job to run the marital home but when her
husband died in 1939, leaving her with two young children to support Elsie, Mrs. Deacon, rejoined the GWR
Signal Department as a draughtswoman until her retirement in 1962, aged 65.
Elsie’s sister Ella Winterton passed the entrance exam and joined GWR in 1916 and also had a long career as
a draughtswoman in Reading and later in Paddington. Another sister Doris joined GWR in 1929 and worked
at Paddington station as a tracer’
Info from Wikipedia and STEAM Swindon and Reading museum and MERL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsie_Louisa_Deacon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institution_of_Railway_Signal_Engineers
