Jean Sheppard was born Jean Shufflebotham in Newcastle ubder Lyme, Staffordshire, England on 2 July 1911 and studied at the Architectural Association School in London where she was awarded a Dip. AA. and in 1937 was elected an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA). She was also an Associate of the Town Planning Institute. While at the AA she met and in 1938 married Richard Sheppard That year they formed the architectural practice Richard Sheppard & Partners in London.
During World War Two, both taught at the AA School which had been evacuated to Mount House in Hadley Common, Barnet.
Following the war, the couple returned to private practice in London.
In 1949 Geoffrey Robson (1918-1991) became a partner in the practice and in 1958 the name of the firm was changed to Richard Sheppard, Robson & Partners [later Sheppard Robson].
Jean Sheppard died in Hertford, Hertfordshire in 1974
Richard Sheppard & Partners and Richard Sheppard, Robson & Partners specialised in the design of educational buildings and subsequently designed some eighty schools. During the 1960s and 1970s the practice designed several university and college buildings including for Manchester Polytechnic and Imperial College, London, and at Loughborough (1961–66), Leicester, Brunel (1968–73), the City of London (1969–70). Their most admired building in this field is Churchill College, Cambridge, designed in 1959.
Other works by the practice included shipyard buildings for Swan Hunter on the River Tyne (1950); a large shopping centre at Wood Green, north London; and office buildings in the City of London. Some twenty buildings designed by the practice received architectural awards.
Mills, Edward David. The New Architecture in Britain 1946-1953. London: The Standard Catalogue Co., 1953 [Discusses a village school in Little Wymondley, Hertfordshire designed by Richard Sheppard, Jean Sheppard and Geoffrey Robson of Richard Sheppard & Partners in 1951-52 177-188]