This biography is republished from The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia. Written by Caitlin Stone, The University of Melbourne. See below for full attribution.
Born: 1876, Australia
Died: 1963
Country most active: Australia
Also known as: NA
Edith Haynes was born in Sydney in 1876 and moved with her family to Western Australia in 1891. 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. Edith Haynes died in 1963.
Work cited
Caitlin Stone, ‘Haynes, Edith Ann Mary’, in The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia, Australian Women’s Archives Project, 2014, https://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/WLE0254b.htm, accessed 16 January 2022.