Nancy Northcroft

Anna Holmes "Nancy" Northcroft OBE (23 March 1913 – 31 July 1980) was a New Zealand architect and town planner. She was only the fourth woman to qualify as an architect in New Zealand. Northcroft won a 12-month British Council Empire Scholarship for Women, and travelled to England in 1942 to study town planning. Following her return to New Zealand, in 1949 she took up a position as town planning officer at the Christchurch City Council. In 1954 she was appointed as the founding chief executive of the Christchurch Regional Planning Authority (CRPA). In the later part of her career from 1963 to 1977, she worked in private practice for a Christchurch-based consultancy. She was awarded a Fellowship of the New Zealand Institute of Architects in 1966 and is the first known woman to receive this honour. In 1978 she was recognised with the inaugural gold medal award from the New Zealand Planning Institute, and was also awarded an OBE for services to town planning.