Considered by some to be Britain's first practicing female architect. Established her Glasgow practice in 1920. Works included the Coatbridge War Memorial, the Glasgow Mercat Cross, and commissions for certain elements of St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral and Music School in Edinburgh.
She toured Europe as a young lady, being exposed to a vast array of old-world architecture and hearing a variety of lectures at the Sorbonne. She graduated from Gray's School of Art in 1914 with a diploma in architecture, although her first discipline was garden design.
She was the first woman nominated for membership in the Royal Institute of British Architects, although her nomination was denied because of her gender.
Her father was advocate George Wardlaw Burnet and her uncle was architect Sir John Burnet. She married fellow architect and former tutor Thomas Hughes and had three children.
She was born in the same country as actor Sean Connery.