Law Archives - Page 11 of 16

Enid Locket

One of the earliest female barristers in England.

Mithan Jamshed Lam

Indian lawyer, women’s rights activist and the first Indian woman barrister, lawyer at the Bombay High Court and Sheriff of Mumbai

Josie Airey

Irish legal-aid campaigner

Katherine Delahunt

First female solicitor appointed to the Circuit Court in Ireland

In 1900, having worked at her uncle’s law firm, she applied to the Barristers Board of Western Australia to sit the examinations necessary to practise as a lawyer. The board refused her request on the grounds that a woman was not a ‘person’ under the Legal Practitioners Act 1893. Haynes challenged the decision in the Supreme Court of Western Australia, but it was upheld; she was never admitted to practice.

Mella Carroll

Irish judge

Audrey Ngaere Gale

In 1945 she founded and became secretary of the New Plymouth branch of the New Zealand National Party, and in 1951 became chairwoman of the New Plymouth women’s section. She went on to become a dominion councillor (1951–54) and women’s vice president (1953–54), and a member of the dominion executive in 1954 and of the dominion policy advisory committee in 1956.

Ellen Melville

Although she worked tirelessly to complete the work of the nineteenth century feminists in attempting to remove so-called women’s disabilities, Ellen Melville represented a new breed of feminism. She was an independent professional woman who vigorously sought full participation in public life. She encouraged other women to follow her and to form strong women’s societies, which would take women’s concerns into the arena of public affairs. Melville was one of the key figures in the revival of the feminist movement in the twentieth century.