Symposium: First Women Lawyers

Professor June Purvis

I'm in the Jubilee Room (that's the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977), continuity Pugin, in the Houses of Parliament. There are five portraits of men on the walls, ranging from the seventeenth to the twentieth century.

The afternoon is devoted to women: Dr Judith Bourne of St Mary's University, Twickenham, has organised First Women Lawyers in Great Britain and the Empire Symposium: the Road to 1919. An outline follows but a longer note will be available from Dr Bourne.

(I'm drawing away, sketch sketch sketch. Some work, some don't. The hand exaggerates, particularly curves. It's not you, it's me.)

Welcome from Dr Judith Bourne: 'If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.' Understanding women’s entry to the legal profession: their suffrage networks and connections.

Professor June Purvis: Christabel Pankhurst - suffragette leader, aspiring lawyer and Second Adventist

                                                     

Dr Takayanagi, Dr Derry

Dr Mari Takayanagi: What happened at Westminster - men, women and the passage of the Representation of the People Act 1918

Helen Kay

Dr Caroline Derry: Silent on suffrage - legal pioneers outside the Votes for Women campaigns

Dr Judith Bourne: 'Happy is [s]he who can trace effects to their causes' (Virgil) - The Road to 1919: tracing the involvement of the women’s movement in the passing of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919

(Rose Pipes - absent - and) Helen Kay: Chrystal Macmillan - indefatigable campaigner for women’s rights and equality

Carrie de Silva

Carrie de Silva: 'A woman needs a man like...' - a review of the occupations and positions of the men in the lives of early women lawyers

Dr Burton

Dr Frances Burton: Helen Elizabeth (Betty) Archdale, MBE (1907-2000), early woman barrister, cricketer and educator - and a strong link with the suffragists

Ros Wright QC: Meanwhile, across the Channel …

Professor Graffy

Professor Colleen Graffy: British influence on the first women lawyers in America

Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC (Helena Normanton QC on slide)

Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC, Doughty Street Chambers: Blue plaque campaign - where are all the women?

Emily Thornberry, MP and barrister, wraps up the afternoon with a brilliant  extempore talk ('You're the best pupil we've ever had,' the clerk told her, 'but we can't give you tenancy because we don't want to get a reputation for being a women's set.')