Beatrice Hutton
RGGS student 1908-1910
Beatrice May (Bea) Hutton (1893-1990), architect and craftswoman, was born on 16 July 1893 at The Folly, Lakes Creek, Queensland, second of seven children of Falconer West Hutton, a surveyor born in NSW and his Queensland wife Clara Susannah.
Bea spent much of her childhood at Comet Downs, Central Queensland, until the effects of the great drought at the turn of the century forced the Hutton family off the land. They moved to Rockhampton where Falconer practised as a surveyor and Bea attended Rockhampton Girls Grammar School.
Resolved on an independent career, she entered her father’s office for a year to learn the rudiment of drafting. Hutton believed that the greatest contribution of women to architecture was in the domestic sphere, in the design of homes suited to climate and equipped for modern living.
Houses that are among her best-known works: the J.W. Dalzell (Manager of the Bank of Australasia) residence in Spencer Street, Rockhampton (c 1916); the Frank Rudd residence in Agnes Street, Rockhampton (C 1923); Ngarita for an uncle, Sir William Vicars, Rose Bay, Bellevue Hill, Sydney (C 1926); and a retirement cottage for her parents at 33 Brecknell for her parents, Street, Rockhampton (c 1926).
Following her father’s death, Bea and her mother moved to Brisbane, becoming actively involved in handwork. Beatrice joined the Arts and Crafts Society of Queensland and took lessons in wood carving from Lewis Harvey.
In 1936, she opened a crafty studio, The Glory Box, in Brisbane’s Colonial Mutual Life Building, where she sold her work including embroideries, knitted dresses, rugs, ceramics, woodcarving and bead curtains. She also undertook commissions for carved portraits. Her work is represented in the collection of the Queensland Museum, Brisbane and in a name plate that she carved for Miegunyah, the home of the Queensland Women’s Historical Association.