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100 Years of Women at the Bar
100 YEARS OF WOMEN AT
THE BAR at the Bar
At a dinner on 10 May 2022, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the first women to be called to the Bar, the Treasurer gave the following speech. The dinner was preceded by Inner Temple student and Princess Royal Scholar, Maud Millar, singing Occuli Omnium.
History Society Lecture: The History of Women at the Bar
Thank you, Maud Millar. Maud is not only a trained opera singer, but a 2022 Princess Royal Scholar. On this evening when we are looking into the past, celebrating the achievements of young women who were called to the Bar at Inner Temple in 1922, how better to represent the high achievements and bright future of our young women members of the Inn today.
I am delighted to welcome you all, Benchers and guests, to this dinner. And on behalf of us all, I thank Dr Frances Burton for the fascinating lecture we heard earlier (see pages 15-18, Inner Temple Yearbook). 1922 was indeed an extraordinary year with Ivy Williams and Theodora Llewellyn Davies both called by The Inner Temple. Our gathering of women (and a few very special male guests) tonight reminds me of the second evening after my arrival at Somerville College in 1979, when unannounced, there was a college dinner celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of the college alumnae, Dorothy L Sayers. The Principal in her speech informed us that in order to bring her presence among us, two of the women dons would be wearing, respectively, Dorothy’s famous Chinese jacket and her shoes. And in they came to bemused applause from the undergraduates. As an 18 year old just arrived from Newcastle I thought this rather fetishist approach to her clothes extraordinary. I am glad that we have done much better in including the spirit of the 1922 pioneers by welcoming members of the families of Ivy Williams, and Theodora Llewellyn Davies here in person. We are honoured to have you with us, in your own clothes.
It is undoubtedly true that in the last 100 years the world has changed beyond recognition. For example, 1922 marked the greatest reach of the then British Empire. But I was struck recently by a news article about the expansion of the British Library archives at Boston Spa, which contained a facsimile cutting from the Boston Globe (Boston Mass, not Boston Spa) April 1919 which included two articles, the first asking what was to be done about Russia, Bolshevism, and aggression in Ukraine, and the second about whether a new outbreak of the Spanish flu in Sweden could spread the pandemic. There are stronger parallels between the 1920s and today than we might have hoped.
After the horror and waste of young life by the First World War and the Spanish flu, the 1920s saw an outpouring of energy and creativity by women in all areas of life and society, including the Arts. As I watched the exquisite floral arch go up last week for the Reopening of the Treasury Building, amid the extraordinary efforts being made to make the building ready for the visit by our Royal Bencher, HRH The Princess Royal, I was reminded of the first line of Mrs Dalloway, the first modernist novel giving outward expression of a woman’s reactions to the difficulties of life, through the internal workings of her mind. It was published in 1925, in an extraordinary group of modernist novels which included both Ulysses and The Wasteland, both published in 1922: “Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. For Lucy had her work cut out for her”.
Luckily, I did not have to buy the flowers, and we avoided any existential crises internal or external that Mrs Dalloway faced on the day before her party.
So, what would our courageous young women of 1922 have thought about this evening? They knew they were breaking new ground in the legal profession, but could they have imagined such a gathering of women meeting in their honour as we have tonight? A gathering which includes the President of the Queen’s Bench Division, the Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland, Lady Justices of Appeal, High Court judges, Circuit and Tribunal judges, QCs (not KCs as they were then), academics, as Ivy Williams herself became, and successful practitioners in all areas of law. In 1922, they squeezed through the chink in the door and entered into a hostile legal world of male privilege. I am most indebted to Master Sally Smith for lending me Chambers in the Temple by CP Hawkes, published in 1930 which contains in a chapter called Portia and her Suitors (I think that indicates the tone…) a reflection on Ivy Williams and those who had followed her. It captures the air which our young women breathed: The woman-Barrister must not claim indulgence by any feminine appeal, nor assert equality by aping manhood, and for some time her position must necessarily be uncertain and fraught with embarrassments.
It is unlikely that women will for a long time, at any rate, attain distinction in the more technical and specialized branches of practice, such as Equity, Admiralty or commercial causes, references or arbitrations. It is also probable that the majority will prove unequal to the protracted nervous strain of criminal trials; but in the homelier atmosphere of the County Courts, where litigants and witnesses are so frequently women, and in breach-of-promise and divorce cases in the High Court (if she can face unflinchingly the moral squalor), the ladyBarrister may find scope for her feminine intuition; for in such cases one party is always of her sex.”
Chambers in the Temple
CP Hawkes
And he thought he was being complimentary! We should not be complacent, and we all know instances of such patronising behaviour and worse still continue, but we now have the numbers and confidence to make it clear this is unacceptable, and the structures to do something about it within the Bar and Judiciary. And we should use all the means we have. The Inns are certainly playing our part. This year, building on the work done since 2012 by Inner and Middle Temple in the Temple Women’s Forum, all four Inns formed the Inns of Court Alliance for Women, a powerful statement of unity of purpose and intent for the future.
I am sure our 1922 women would have been gratified by the breadth and depth of achievement we have gathered this evening, but would they not have been disappointed that it took so long to get to this stage? They created the breach, but there was no immediate flood which followed, more a very gradual erosion through the 20th century with a sudden increase over the last 20 years. It is remarkable that this evening we have many ‘Firsts’ present, but perhaps even more remarkable that there are still so many ‘Firsts’ which have yet to be achieved.
On the other hand, our young women of 1922, looking around the room today would undoubtedly be surprised by the diversity in the profession: not only diversity based in ethnic background, but in what would have been thought of as ‘class’. In 1922, it was only three years since the vote was extended to most women over 30, and equal voting rights with men were still six years away.
The Bar itself remained a profession for the privileged few for well over 50 years after the Call we celebrate tonight, and lagged behind society so far that it was still possible in 1960 for prosecuting counsel in the Lady Chatterley’s Lover obscenity trial to ask the jury (which included three women, and which was selected from a panel including a dock labourer, a butcher, a dress machinist, and several salesmen) the infamous question “Is this a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read”. Members of the jury exchanged looks, and we all know the outcome of the trial. But this rejection of the outdated elitism of the Bar, did not mark its end. In 1974, Glanville Williams in Learning the Law in a passage edited out of more recent editions ventured that “an advocate’s task is essentially combative, whereas women are not generally prepared to give battle unless they are annoyed. A woman’s voice, also, does not carry as well as a man’s”. Some here tonight will remember the stiffness, formality and overwhelming maleness of chambers when they joined, and the exclusionary behaviours, sometimes dressed up as good manners which persisted well into the 1980s in my own experience, and which we must still work to eradicate entirely.
So, we should certainly celebrate our achievements, and the achievements of those who have gone before us. But we must also keep up the momentum and increase the pace of change towards equality and equity. We must push the dial forward at every opportunity we can. I am delighted to see that we have this year’s Treasurer of Middle Temple (The Hon Mrs Justice Maura McGowan DBE), and next year’s Treasurer of Gray’s Inn (The Rt Hon Lady Justice Nicola Davies DBE) here this evening. You will have seen the photograph, taken last week with our Royal Treasurer HRH the Princess Royal, of all four of The Inner Temple’s Women Treasurers: Master Butler Sloss, the first, was just in the 20th century in 1998, Master Heather Hallett in 2011, Master Liz Gloster in 2018, and myself in 2022. The intervals are getting shorter, and I hope very much that women Treasurers in all of the Inns will no longer be occasional rarities, but regular, and their appointment quite unremarkable.
This is an important moment, and we should make the most of it. We are coming out of the pandemic, and we at The Inner Temple have our new building and facilities, all in this centenary year. At our reopening last week there was a palpable feeling of excitement, and a desire to use this opportunity to fulfil our core purpose of education with renewed vigour. Let us not go back to normal but let us emulate the 1920s and create a new, more innovative and inclusive normal which embraces changes in education and technology and promotes all aspects of equality and diversity.
We will mark this anniversary not only by meeting together at this dinner, but by creating a commemorative booklet to go out with the Yearbook. For this we need your co-operation. One great advantage we have over our young women of 1922 is the ease with which we can take photographs. Although the first instant camera (with not so portable dark room) was coincidentally invented in 1922, digital photography of the quality produced by most phones was certainly not. After this dinner you will receive an email which will ask you to provide a photograph of yourself, with an object, animate or inanimate which is important to you. There will also be a template containing three questions only. All to be returned by the 30 June 2022.
I know we all hate audience participation, that you are all busy, and that at least for the photograph you will need the assistance of a friend (selfies will not do!) but I am not just going to ask but insist that you all do this. It is so important to capture and record this moment in our history. I was thinking of possible sanctions, but I know I will not need them. Women so rarely let the side down. It is not what we do. I will certainly not be marking any non-returns with a picture of a tub of lard, as Have I Got News for You did once when a politician failed to turn up for the programme. Brutal, brilliant, but not for us!
Just before we begin our dinner this evening, I return to the great CP Hawkes.
He tells us that in 1930:
“Some Circuits admit their women-members to Mess at all times: some on Grand Night only: and some not at all. At the Middle Temple the women eat together; while at the Inner on any day at lunch you may see them scattered among the men – as one of them is said to have remarked ‘at the Inner, thank God, we don’t have to feed in purdah’.”
Lucky us, having the choice to meet and eat this evening with mostly other women, with our very welcome male guests for once, in the minority. I hope you will enjoy the rest of the evening.
Her Honour Judge Deborah Taylor Master Treasurer
Maud Miller singing grace
