Born in Prussia in 1876 Gertrude von Petzold had come to Britain to seek opportunities for higher education. Seven years later, with degrees from St Andrew's and Edinburgh, she was accepted for training at MCO; on completion of this she was offered the ministry at Leicester in competition with seven male candidates. In 1908 she left for America where she spent two years with a group of radical Unitarian women.

On returning to England in 1910 she was appointed to Small Heath Unitarian Chapel in Birmingham. In both her English ministries she attracted large congregations, who came not only out of curiosity but also because she was eloquent and challenging. Forced to return to Germany in 1914, she at length became pastor of the Free Evangelical congregation in Konigsberg, before taking a PhD and becoming a lecturer in English at Frankfurt University, the first woman to achieve this status in Germany.

As a committed internationalist she promoted Anglo-German relations whenever possible, in the first year of World War I before she was deported, and continuing to do so between the wars and after World War II. At the time of her death in 1952 she was helping refugees from East Germany.

Although she did not open the floodgates (it would be 11 years before another woman was appointed), she has since been succeeded by 50 Unitarian women ministers, including of course Rev Elizabeth Birtles who served in the Wessex Area Ministry.

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