The Gazette 1978

GAZETTE

DECEMBER1978 WOMEN AND THE LAW — A Historical Note

when she adverted to the unfortunate position in which she was placed by the conflicting decisions that had geen given upon her case . . . for seven long years had her claims been bandied about in various courts in the three kingdoms; they had been submitted to eighteen judges and handled by nearly a hundred lawyers without any unanimous decision being arrived at . . . "". Her appeal was unsuccessful. Later in the century a Miss Anthony, generally regarded as a frivolous and vexatious litigant, frequently appeared in person. Edward Carson claimed to have helped to instill a taste for litigation in her, 9 and it was a contemporary joke that not notice of her death would be published by any newspapers for fear that she was not dead but sleepeth only, and would arise and sue for libel. One recorded appearance in court in 1880 was unsuccessful:— "An application to set aside the statement of claim in the case of Anthony v. Percival, heard before the Queen's Bench Division on the 20th inst., was resisted by Miss Anthony, the plaintiff, in person. Fitzgerald J. said that the statement of claim was incomprehensible. The lady might have a very good cause of action, of which the court could know nothing, because it was not set forth in a form to make it intelligible. It was impossible for a lay person to frame legal pleadings in a technical case of this kind . . . O'Brien J. said that the statement of claim was altogether unintelligible. It was very bad economy for people to become their own lawyers". 10 The effect of the 1919 Act was quickly seen even if for some decades it was not dramatic. In January 1920, within a month of its passing, the first two women students for the Bar were admitted to the King's Inss, and they were called to the Bar in Dublin in November 1921. 11 One of them, Miss Frances Kyle, won the Brooke Scholarship, the principal academic prize for students for the Bar. She was called to the Bar in Northern Ireland later that month. The first woman solicitor was admitted in the South in 1923 and by 1953 108 women had been admitted, a substantial number of whom however did not take out annual practising certificates; the Secretary of the Law Society, Eric Plunkett, remarked that on current trends "the proportion will be considerably higher in the next generation". 12 1. C. Gamble, Solicitors in Ireland (1921), p 68. 2. Bebb v. Law Society, 1914 1 Ch. 286. 3. The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919, 8 & 9 Geo. v. c71, si. 4. Bebb v. Law Society 1914 1 Ch. 286. 5. I.L.T. & SJ., Vol. 35, p 507 (Nov. 2nd 1901). 6. I.L.T. & S.J., Vol. 43, p 151 (June 19th 1908) and Vol. 42, p 216 (Sept., 5th 1908). 7. I.L.T. & SJ., Vol. 33, p 110 (March, 5th 1898). 8. I.T.L. &, SJ., Vol. 1, p 388 (June 22nd 1867). 9. E. Marjoribanks, The Life of Lord Carson, Vol. 1, p 44. 10. I.L.T. & S.J., Vol. 14, p 208 (April 24th 1880). 11. I.L.T. & SJ., Vol. 54, p 24 (Jan. 24th 1920) and Vol. 55, p 272 (Nov. 5th 1921). 12. E. Plunkett, Attorneys and Solicitors in Ireland (1953) p 71.

The President of the Law Society wrote in 1921 that the admission of women to the solicitors' profession was a development which "will be viewed with considerable interest and curiosity" 1 . If the curiosity which existed half a century ago has vanished recent issues of the Gazette testify that the interest has not. Women in Ireland, as in Britain, were by common law under a general disability by reason of their sex to become lawyers 2 until the enactment in 1919 of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act. This provided that a person should not be disqualified by sex or marriage from the exercise of any public function or from being appointed to or holding any civil or judicial office or post, or from entering or assuming or carrying on any civil profession or vocation and that a person should not be exempted by sex or marriage from the liability to serve as a juror. 3 As the terms of the Act suggest, the admission of women to the legal profession was but one part of a general review of their legal position in society occurring in the first part of the twentieth century, an issue brought to a head by the social disruption caused by the First World War. Their exclusion from the profession led to litigation in England against the Law Society in 1914, 4 but does not appear to have given rise to controversy in Ireland. When in October 1901 the Benchers of King's Inns refused an application by a woman to become a student for the Bar the Irish Law Times said that the Benchers "felt themselves obliged to follow British Precedent". 9 A reader of the Irish Law Times would have known that women could practise as lawyers in other countries, since from time to time the paper reported that women had been admitted to the Bar in some remote part of the world, such as India or the western parts of the United States. The matter came closer to home in 1909 when it was reported that the Bar of Paris had passed a regulation forbidding advocates to allow their photographs to be published in newspapers or magazines; the previous year photographs of lady advocates appeared in a Paris law directory. 6 Although women could not practise as lawyers, many women connected with the legal profession doubtless gave assistance to their husbands or fathers, work which of its nature is unrecorded. Women were entitled to appear in court and plead for themselves in cases in which they are concerned and some Irish women became well known for this in the latter half of the nineteenth century, one being described on the occasion of an appearance in the Land Commission Court in Dublin in 1898 as "a well-known lady litigant from Co. Monaghan, a familiar figure at every Monaghan assizes for years past". 7 In the famous Yelverton case, in which the validity of a marriage was litigated through Ireland, Scotland and England for a number of years in the 1860s the abandoned 'wife', Theresa Yelverton, argued her case in person when the matter came before the House of Lords on appeal in 1867. She "addressed their Lordships in a firm clear voice, which became loud and impassioned

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