To mark International Women’s Day, we asked local historian Martin Peagam to look at the history of women in the legal profession.
1913: ‘You can have a woman doctor, but you can’t have a woman lawyer’ report regarding Gwyneth Bebb (pictured below), one of the first women to be awarded a degree in law at Oxford, the first to achieve first-class honours, and a pioneer for women entering the legal profession, who featured in the Bebb v Law Society case (source: Oxford University Law via the Daily Sketch).
1918: Representation of the People Act gave some women the right to vote. The Parliament (qualification of Women) Act passed in November 1918, allowed women to stand for election to Parliament.
1919: The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act, championed by the Women’s Freedom League, was passed. This legislation enabled women to be awarded degrees, to serve on juries, and to join professions and professional bodies. It opened the way to female solicitors and barristers.
One week after the Act was passed, Ada Summers, ex officio a Justice by virtue of being the Mayor of Stalybridge, was sworn in as the first female Justice of the Peace.
November 1921: The first women barristers to be appointed were Frances Kyle and Averil Deverell in Ireland. The first woman called to the Bar was Ivy Williams in May 1922. By the end of that year there were hundreds of women serving as magistrates and 11 women had been called to the Bar, but there were still no women solicitors.
October 1922: It was reported that there were between 60 and 70 women articled clerks studying to become solicitors, many of which were the daughters of country solicitors who have no sons, or else have lost them in the war, and who have articled their girls instead, to keep the practice in the family.
18 December 1922: Carrie Morrison (pictured as article lead image), 34, was the first woman admitted to the roll of solicitors by the Law Society of England and Wales. Three days later Carrie had received her first two clients: two women.
Early 1923: Carrie was joined by three other women: Maud Isabel Crofts, Mary Elizabeth Pickup and Mary Elaine Sykes.
1931: There were around 100 female solicitors.
1933: The first female-only law partnership was founded.
1982: Adrienne D’Arcy was the first female solicitor at Jacksons (read more about her journey). She became partner in 1985, aged 26.
2010: A report by The Lawyer found that 22% of partners at the UK’s top 100 firms were women; today more than half of solicitors are women.
2026: Jacksons has a team which is 75% female and 25% male. In 1982, Adrienne was the only female solicitor; now Jacksons has 23, as well as four female partners led by senior partners Erica Turner and Amie Callan.
