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GAZETTE
SEPTEMBER 1990
The first women
lawyers
On 22 September 1989 the new
offices of the Attorney-General of
Ontario in Toronto were dedicated
and named the Clara Brett Martin
Building to commemorate "the first
woman lawyer in the whole British
Empire". I happened to be in
Toronto at the time, and the
mention of her achievement
prompted a search for the first
women lawyers in other parts of
what was once the British Empire.
Clara Martin was called to the
Bar and became a solicitor in
Ontario on 2 February 1897, but
she had had many obstacles to
overcome on the way. As early as
1891 she had applied to the Law
Society of Upper Canada for
permission to become a lawyer, but
her application had been rejected
by the Special Committee on the
Admission of Clara Brett Martinas
a Student-At-Law. The
Canada Law
Journal
welcomed the decision not
to admit women and commented:
"We know of no public advantage .
to their being admitted to the bar.
As a matter of taste it is rather a
surprise to see a woman seeking a
profession where she is bound to
meet much that would offend the
natural modesty of her sex".
Nothing daunted, Clara Martin
enlisted the help of Sir Oliver
Mowat, the Attorney General of
Ontario at the time. Thanks largely
to his support, the Ontario
Legislature passed an Act in 1892
" 'As a matter of taste it is
rather a surprise to see a
woman seeking a profession
where she is bound to meet
much that would offend the
natural modesty of her sex'. "
that gave the Law Society the right
to admit women as solicitors, and
Clara was articled to a Toronto law
firm in 1893. An Act of 1895
obliged the Law Society to admit
women to the Bar, but technical
wrangles kept her from claiming
her victory until February 1897.
She practised law in the City of
Toronto until her death in 1923.
New Zealand was hard on
Canada's heels. By courtesy of the
Deputy Registrar of the District
Court at Dunedin I can report that
Miss Ethel Rebecca Benjamin "was
admitted as a barrister and solicitor
in this Court before Mr. Justice
Williams on 6 April 1897". This
was only two months after Clara
Martin had been admitted in
Toronto. One wonders if the two
ladies ever compared notes about
their experiences.
Miss Benjamin too had had dif-
ficulties to contend with. When she
applied to the Council for
permission to use the library, the
Council resolved that she could be
given "a permit to read in the
Judge's Chamber Room, there
being no rule applicable to her
case" (
Portrait of a Profession
by
Robin Cooke Q.C., pp.336-7). It was
also suggested that the Judges
should be asked to prescribe
suitable dress for the women
lawyers "as prescribed by the
Ontario Law Society", but nothing
seems to have come of this. (In
February 1990 it was announced
that Dame Catherine Tizard was to
be New Zealand's first woman
Governor-General. In this field too
Canada had led the way).
The Assistant Archivist of the
Law Society of Upper Canada has
drawn my attention to the "Rules
respecting women" to be found on
pages 378 and 379 of the
Central
Law Journal
of 1919. One rule runs:
"Every such woman appearing
before Convocation upon the
occasion of her being admitted to
practise as aforesaid, shall appear
in a barrister's gown worn over a
black dress, white necktie, with
head uncovered".
The other colonies and even the
mother country were slow to follow
the example of Canada and New
Zealand. Decades rather than years
went by before, in the nineteen-
twenties, these other countries too
began to admit women lawyers. In
Australia, for instance, Miss A.E.
Evans was admitted as a barrister
by the New South Wales Full Court
on 12 May 1921, but she did not
practise in the courts. The first
practising
lady barrister in New
South Wales was Mrs. Sibyl Munro
Morrison, admitted on 2 June
1924.
A few years later, on 17 March
1931, Enid Marjorie Russell became
the first woman to qualify in law in
Western Australia and to be
admitted as a practitioner of the
Supreme Court of Western
Australia. She had been born in
1904 and died in 1958, having
worked almost until she died. In
1950 she had written much of "A
history of the law in Western
Australia and its development from
1829 to 1979", which was edited
and completed by F.M. Robinson
and RW. Nichols and published by
the University of WesternAustralia
Press in 1980. This work included
a brief biography of Miss Russell by
Sheila McClemans.
In South Africa, aspiring lady
lawyers encountered the same kind
of obstacles that had beset the
path of Clara Martin in Canada. In
1909, for instance, a lady named
Sonya Schlesin brought an applica-
tion before the Transvaal Provincial
Division to compel the Incorporated
Law Society of the Transvaal to
register her articles. The judge ruled
against her, on the ground that the
Henry Button.
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