The Inner Temple Yearbook 2021–2022
Ivy Williams
IVY WILLIAMS In this centenary anniversary year of her Call to the Bar, Ivy Williams is seen through the eyes of her distant cousin, Bridget Wheeler.
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Ivy Williams © Courtesy of Bridget Wheeler
On the evening of 10 May 1922, Ivy Williams was called to the Bar by The Inner Temple. So ended the struggle for admission to the profession by women that has been well documented in this publication by Dr Judith Bourne. Her professional life has also been the subject of scholarly work by Dr Caroline Morris to whom I am indebted for rekindling my intention to write a fuller biography of Ivy. Ivy and I are cousins twice removed. In reviewing her accomplishments, I have had recourse not only to such public domain information as is available but also to family recollections and photographs, and the letters book of my great uncle Percy Prior, who acted for Ivy as her solicitor. Ivy and I share a common great- (great again, in my case) grandfather. Adin Williams, modestly described as a mercer in Oxford, was rather more than that. He was at some time election agent to Gladstone, a mover and shaker in local Oxford politics, a committee member for the Oxford and Salisbury railway line, an investor in property, possibly a man with insufficient time to spend with his family, a liberal to the core, fervent Congregationalist, guardian of the poor, an Oxford Street commissioner, regular litigant for the rights of citizens, and strong supporter of education for women. Ivy referred to him warmly in her speech making. Of significance, Ivy never met him. Her father took his young family away from Oxford after an unorthodox marriage to the family’s (very) young maid and only returned full-time to Oxford after his death in 1876; Ivy was born the following year. All her understanding of her grandfather’s views and passions came from her father.
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To me, there was in context a certain inevitability of that night in May 1922, as if Ivy’s whole life had been directed towards that moment. In an interview that she had given reported in the Dundee Evening Post inter alia as long before as 1 April 1904, she stated: “Like my brother, the late Mr Winter Williams, who was called to the Bar at Inner Temple in 1899, I have been educated expressly for the legal profession, and have been studying law continuously for eight years…” (She goes on to describe her unique qualification from both Oxford and London universities and describes the exams she has already passed as more challenging than those of the Bar.) Ivy’s life in 1904 seemed to be heading directly towards a career in law, and one as an advocate. At 27, she was already an outstanding student and had expressed her object in becoming a barrister to be a poor man’s lawyer and set up a type of legal dispensary. She had been described in 1903 as a “doughty champion” entering the ranks and all looked set for a predictable clash with the establishment, in respect of which she had already declared herself willing to practise outside the system and to take the matter to parliament if need be. The concept of acting outside the profession was not new – there existed at Lincoln’s Inn at least the possibility of acting ‘under the Bar’; Eliza Orme had practised as an unqualified person and Maria Rye had trained female law clerks from a legal stationers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. What Ivy seemed to have in mind was a more public role, and wry comment at the time speculated as to how she could participate in a hearing without the necessary Call.
