Winifred Maddock was born Winfred Ryle at Livingstone House in Monken Hadley, Barnet, Middlesex, England on 3 February 1897. Later that year she moved with her family to 15 German Place, Brighton, Sussex.
Architecture was in her family's genes. Her maternal great uncle was the Gothic revival architect Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878). She was also related to the ecclesiastical architect, George Frederick Bodley (1827-1907) and to Elisabeth Whitworth Scott (1898-1972), architect of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.
After attending Brighton School of Art from 1914 to 1917, she enrolled at the Architectural Association Schools in London in 1917 and was one of the first four women to attend the AA, the others being Gillian Cooke, Irene Graves, and Ruth Lowy. She was awarded her Diploma from the AA in July 1921 and was elected an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA) the following year.
As early as 1920-21 she was paid by the AA to lecture to students and became the first woman to teach at the school. In 1922-23 she collaborated with fellow AA graduate Eleanor Katherine Dorothy Hughes (1885-1951) in designing the village hall at Danehill, in the East Sussex, the first building designed by women alumnae of the AA.
In 1924 she married the architect Richard Henry Maddock (1889–1963). Together they formed a partnership. They settled in Carshalton, Surrey, where in 1925, they built a house for themselves. They became known for designing labour-saving houses. In the 1930s they received commissions from a local, entrepreneur and philanthropist, Thomas Wall, to design social housing and an assembly hall. Following World War Two, the Maddocks specialized in the repair of bomb-damaged buildings. Winifred Maddock became a Quaker and designed the Friends meeting room in Sutton, Surrey, built in 1955-59.
The Maddocks' address was given as Telscombe, Upland Road, Sutton, Surrey in 1924 and 1939; and 105 Upland Road, Cashalton in 1950 and 1963. Richard Maddock died on 19 September 1963. Winifred Maddock retired from architectural practice in 1963 following the death of her husband and died in Carshalton, Surrey on 3 October 1987.
Village Hall, Danehill, Sussex (In partnership with Miss E. K. D. Hughes. A.R.I.B.A.), 1923; domestic work at Pangbourne (Berks), and Sutton and Kingswood (Surrey), in partnership with R. H. Maddock, A.R.I.B.A. [Source: Who's Who in Architecture 1926]
AA Women in Architecture 1917-2017. Edited by Elizabeth Darling and Lynne Walker. London: Architectural Association and the authors, 2017 [listed under Ryle, Winifred]
Ryle, Winifred. ‘Women as architects’. Architectural Association Journal vol. 33, March 1918 pp.108–109
Who’s Who in Architecture 1926. Edited by Frederick Chatterton. London: The Architectural Press, 1926