Elsie Louisa Winterton (1897 - 1984) 

In 1915 Elsie joined the drawing office at Great Western Railway and two years later was appointed draughtswoman, a skilled technical engineering role. She worked on wiring diagrams of electric signalling appliances for track circuits and signal and point machines for use on the railways. While working at GWR, she enrolled at University College, Reading passing exams in machine construction and drawing, electricity and magnetism, applied mechanics, general physics and mathematics and won two university prizes. 

In 1923, The Woman Engineer and the international press were delighted to report that Miss E L Winterton had been elected as the first woman member of the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers. She attended IRSE's international conventions in Brussels and Holland, where she met her husband, Edward Charles Deacon. She had to leave employment on marriage but Edward died in 1939 leaving her with two small children, so Elsie Deacon rejoined the GWR Signal Department, working as a draughtswoman until retiring in 1962, although she had to fight for her pension rights.