1. [1914] 1 Ch 286.

2. Eg ‘In Bebb v Law Society the plaintiff spinster brought an action against the Law Society...After the First World War, and the dramatically changed role which women played during the course of the conflict, society began to take a radically different view of women's proper role in society’: AH Manchester Modern Legal History (London: Butterworths, 1980) pp 70–71.

3. Parry, RG ‘Is legal biography really legal scholarship?’ (2010) 30 Legal Studies 208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Purvis, J ‘Doing feminist women's history: researching the lives of women in the Suffragette Movement in Edwardian England’ in Maynard, M and Purvis, J (eds) Researching Women's Lives From a Feminist Perspective (London: Taylor & Francis, 1994) p 167.Google Scholar

5. As Joanna Wade put it, ‘the misogyny of both lawyers and the law was to continue pretty much unabated’ after the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919. Wade, J ‘Portia, Portia & Co: women and law, 1860s–1920s’ in Alexander, S (ed) Studies in the History of Feminism (1850s–1930s) (London: Department of Extra Mural Studies, 1984) p 33 Google Scholar. The literature on women's continuing inequality in the legal profession is extensive, but see, eg, McGlynn, C The status of women lawyers in the United Kingdom’ in Schultz, U and Shaw, G (eds) Women in the World's Legal Professions (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2003) pp 139–158.Google Scholar

6. Griffin, P (ed) St Hugh's: One Hundred Years of Women's Education in Oxford (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1986).CrossRefGoogle ScholarMiss Bebb did, however, appear on the college website: D Quare St Hugh's College History' (accessed October 2008 but now apparently unavailable): http://www.st hughs.ox.ac.uk/The_College/History_of_The_College.php.

7. St David's College was established in 1822 as a theological college for Welsh ordinands. In 1852 it was granted the power to award its own Bachelor of Divinity degree, the first institution to do so after Oxford and Cambridge. From 1865 it gave a BA as well, and not all its students studied divinity or became Church of England priests. Absorbed into the University of Wales federation in 1971, it is now known as University of Wales Lampeter. One of its most distinguished professors emerita is Mary Grey, a feminist theologian.

8. There were seven in the end, four sons and three daughters.

9. ‘Paddington: Education’, A History of the County of Middlesex vol 9: Hampstead, Paddington (1989), pp 265–271, available at http://www.british history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22679.

10. P Hartnoll ‘Introduction’ in Griffin, above n 6, p 1. Wordsworth was the daughter of the Bishop of Lincoln, formerly headmaster of Harrow School. Educated at home (in contrast to her brothers who went to Winchester and Oxford), she was nevertheless an educated woman and a published poet and novelist. F Lannon ‘Wordsworth, Dame Elizabeth (1840–1932)’Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, available at http://www.oxforddnb.com/articles (ODNB).

11. Elizabeth Wordsworth quoted in B Kemp ‘The early history of St Hugh's College’ in Griffin, above n 6, p 15. It was the third of the four women's colleges at Oxford: Somerville and Lady Margaret Hall had been founded in 1879 and St Hilda's in 1893. Women who lived at home and were not attached to any college could join the Oxford Society of Home Students.

12. ‘Towards the end of each term a meeting of all the tutors of all the women's colleges is held. The men tutors state the number of hours they are prepared to give per week to the women, and then the tutors fight’: Grier, L The Life of Winifred Mercier (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937) p 50 Google Scholar. Mercier was at Somerville 1904–1907 and went on to become Principal of Whitelands Training College.

13. Rogers, AMAH Degrees by Degrees: the Story of the Admission of Oxford Women to Membership of the University (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938) p 62.Google ScholarRogers was Oxford's first woman don and a member of the St Hugh's Council 1894–1936. J Howarth ‘Rogers, Annie Mary Anne Henley (1856–1957)’ODNB, above n 10.

14. Howarth, J “In Oxford but...not of Oxford”: the women's colleges’ in Brock, MG and Curthoys, MC (eds) The History of the University of Oxford vol VII: Nineteenth century Oxford Part 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000) p 248 Google Scholar; Brittain, V The Women at Oxford (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1960) p 51.Google Scholar

15. MC Curthoys ‘The examination system’ in Brock and Curthoys (eds) The History of the University of Oxford vol VI: Nineteenth century Oxford Part 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997) pp 361 and 370; B Nicholas ‘Jurisprudence’ in Brock and Curthoys, vol VII, above n 14, p 386.

16. Curthoys, ibid, p 360.

17. Fox, ‘Williams, Ivy (1877–1966)’ODNB, above n 10. Auchmuty, R ‘Early women law students at Cambridge and Oxford’ (2008) 29 Journal of Legal Studies 80 Google Scholar. Neither Lady Margaret Hall nor St Hilda's had had a law student by Miss Bebb's time.

18. Quare, above n 6.

19. See Wade, above n 5, pp 37–39.

20. Notes made by Miss George, secretary to Mrs Oliver [Ray] Strachey, 4 March 1920, from information provided by Miss Nettlefold to brief Mrs Strachey for her speech at a dinner given by the Lord Chancellor to celebrate women's admission to the legal profession. Nettlefold Scrapbook (NS) vol 2, p 36 (in the Women's Library, London).

21. Indeed, a degree was not a prerequisite, though most barristers had one by this time; not, however, solicitors.

22. Pankhurst studied law at the Victoria University, Manchester, between 1903 and 1906, graduating with first class honours: Auchmuty, R ‘Feminists as stakeholders in the law school’ in Cownie, F (ed) Stakeholders in the Law School (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2010) pp 42–45.Google Scholar

23. Rogers, above n 13, p 23; Howarth, above n 14, p 257; Curthoys, above n 15, p 363.

24. Lawson, FH The Oxford Law School 1850–1965 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968) p 36 Google Scholar; Nicholas, above n 15, pp 389–394.

25. Bell, A ‘Oxford's contribution to modern studies in the arts’ in Prest, J (ed) The Illustrated History of Oxford University (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) p 207.Google Scholar

26. Ibid, pp 208–209; Duxbury, N Frederick Pollock and the English Juristic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27. MC Curthoys ‘The careers of Oxford men’ in Brock and Curthoys, vol VII, above n 14, p 486; RA Cosgrove ‘Pollock, Sir Frederick, Third Baronet (1845–1937)’ODNB, above n 10.

28. HG Hanbury, rev D Ibbetson ‘Holdsworth, Sir William Searle (1871–1944)’ODNB, ibid.

29. Auchmuty, above n 17, at 89.

30. Though not of all feminist causes – Dicey, like many educated men, opposed votes for women. Howarth, above n 14, p 302.

31. Adams, P Somerville for Women: An Oxford College 1879–1993 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) p 62 Google Scholar; Rogers, above n 13, p 131.

32. Lodge, EC Terms and Vacations (London: Oxford University Press, 1938) p 111.Google ScholarLodge was Vice Principal of Lady Margaret Hall 1906–1921 and later Principal of Westfield College, University of London: F Lannon ‘Lodge, Eleanor Constance (1869–1936)’ODNB, above n 10.

33. Kemp, above n 11, p 28.

34. Howarth, above n 14, p 285.

35. Battiscombe, G Reluctant Pioneer: A Life of Elizabeth Wordsworth (London: Constable, 1978) p 123.Google Scholar

36. Ethel Wallace, a contemporary of Miss Bebb, quoted in P West ‘Reminiscences of seven decades’ in Griffin, above n 6, p 64. It was not until Miss Bebb had left that land was acquired, in 1912, for the first of the purpose built buildings that form the nucleus of the present college at the junction of St Margaret's Road and Banbury Road. Quare, above n 6.

37. Kemp, above n 11, p 28. See also MC Curthoys and J Howarth ‘Origins and destinations: the social mobility of Oxford men and women’ in Brock and Curthoys, vol VII, above n 14, pp 58–81.

38. Kemp, above n 11, pp 29–30.

39. West, above n 36, pp 75 and 81.

40. Ibid, p 77.

41. Hartnoll, above n 10, p 2.

42. Lodge, EC ‘Growth, 1890–1922’ in Lady Margaret Hall: A Short History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1923) p 48.Google Scholar

43. Leonardi, S Dangerous by Degrees: Women at Oxford and the Somerville College Novelists (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989) p 35.Google Scholar

44. Peck, W A Little Learning (London: Faber, 1952) p 156.Google Scholar

45. Lodge, above n 42, p 74.

46. Hamilton, MA Newnham: An Informal Biography (London: Faber, 1936) p 24.Google ScholarA student at Newnham 1901–1904, she went on to become a Labour MP: JN Grenier ‘Hamilton, Mary Agnes (1882–1966)’ODNB, above n 10.

47. Wordsworth, E Glimpses of the Past (London: AR Mowbray, 1912) p 159.Google Scholar

48. Bridge, A Enchanter's Nightshade (London: Chatto & Windus, 1937) p 183.Google ScholarHer sister was an academic.

49. Wilson, FM Rebel Daughter of a Country House: The Life of Eglantyne Jebb, Founder of the Save the Children Fund (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1967) pp 57–58.Google Scholar

50. West, above n 36, p 77.

51. J Evans ‘Preface’ to CF Moberly and EF Jourdain An Adventure (London: Faber, 5th edn, 1955) p 14.

52. Ibid, pp 15–16. She succeeded Miss Moberly as principal in 1915 and died, after a very public row over the dismissal of a college tutor which led to the Chancellor's intervention, in 1924: R Trickett ‘The row’ in Griffin, above n 6, pp 48–61; Battiscombe, above n 35, p 208; Evans, ibid, pp 15–16; J Howarth ‘Moberly, Charlotte Anne Elizabeth (“Annie”) (1846–1937)’ and J Howarth ‘Jourdain, Eleanor Frances (1863–1924)’ODNB, above n 10.

53. Quoted in West, above n 36, pp 65–66.

54. Brittain, V Testament of Youth (London: Gollancz, 1933).Google Scholar

55. Quoted in Leonardi, above n 43, p 21.

56. In 1873 Maria Grey and 91 other members of the Women's Education Union unsuccessfully petitioned Lincoln's Inn to open its lectures to women: NS, above n 20, vol XIII: Englishwomen's Review (1873), pp 134–144. A Small Group for the Promotion of Legal Education for Women was set up in London in 1878, with the aim of gaining entry for women into the legal profession:(1878) 60 Englishwomen's Review 151. The following year, a woman (possibly Eliza Orme) unsuccessfully applied to the Law Society to take its preliminary examinations. For accounts of women's efforts to enter the legal profession in England, see, eg, Albisetti, JC ‘Portia Ante Portias: women and the legal profession in Europe, ca 1870–1925’ (2000) 33 Journal of Social History 833 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Birks, M Gentlemen of the Law (London: Stevens, 1960) pp 276–278 Google Scholar; Breckenridge, SP ‘A recent English case on women and the legal profession’ (1915) Journal of Political Economy 67 Google Scholar; (1878) 60 Englishwomen's Review 151; Kennedy, H Women at the Bar’ in Hazell, R (ed) The Bar on Trial (London: Quartet Books, 1978) pp 148–162 Google Scholar; Kirk, H Portrait of a Profession: A History of the Solicitors' Profession, 1100 to the Present Day (London: Oyez, 1976) pp 110–111 Google Scholar; Franz, N English Women Enter the Professions (Cincinnati OH: Privately printed, 1965) ch IXGoogle Scholar; Lang, EM British Women in the Twentieth Century (London: T Werner Laurie, 1929) pp 145–151 Google Scholar; Marin, P ‘First women of law’ (2006) April, Law Society Gazette 40 Google Scholar; Mossman, MJ The First Women Lawyers: A Comparative Study of Gender, Law and the Professions (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2006) ch 3Google Scholar; Skordaki, E ‘Glass slippers and glass ceilings: women in the legal profession’ (1996) 3 International Journal of the Legal Profession 7 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ward, S ‘Girl power: focus women solicitors’ (1997) December, Law Society Gazette 22.Google Scholar

57. University of Oxford Law Lists.

58. Chorlton v Lings (1868) 4 LRCP 374; Jex Blake v Senatus of the University of Edinburgh (1873) 11 M 784; Beresford Hope v Lady Sandhurst[1889] 23 QB 79. Bebb v The Law Society[1914] 1 Ch 286 was to join this list, as was Lady Rhondda's Claim[1922] AC 339. These cases have been trenchantly analysed in Sachs, A and Wilson, JH Sexism and the Law: A Study of Male Beliefs and Judicial Bias (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1978).Google ScholarSee also R Pearson and A Sachs ‘Barristers and gentlemen: a critical look at sexism in the legal profession’[1980] Modern Law Review 400 at 401–405.

59. See, eg, the NS, above n 20, vol 2, p 7; Pearson and Sachs, ibid, pp 401–404; and the references in n 56 above.

60. Wordsworth, above n 47, p 160.

61. Hamilton, above n 46, p 167.

62. For example, the Municipal Franchise Act 1869, Municipal Corporations Act 1882 and Local Government Act 1888, which gave women the vote in local government elections; the Married Women's Property Acts 1870–1893; the Matrimonial Causes Act 1878, which allowed women to separate from violent husbands; the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts in 1883; and the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, which raised the age of consent. There is an extensive literature on Victorian and Edwardian feminism and legal reform; see, eg, Auchmuty, R ‘The Married Women's Property Acts: equality was not the issue’ in Hunter, R (ed) Rethinking Equality Projects in Law: Feminist Challenges (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2008) pp 13–40 Google Scholar; Doggett, M Wife Beating and the Law in Victorian England (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984)Google Scholar; Holcombe, L Wives and Property: Reform of the Married Women's Property Law in Nineteenth Century England (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Shanley, ML Feminism, Marriage and the Law in Victorian England 1850–1895 (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Stetson, DM A Woman's Issue: The Politics of Family Law Reform in England (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 1982).Google Scholar

63. See, eg, Hutchins, BL Women in Modern Industry (London: G Bell & Sons, 1915)Google Scholar; Gollancz, V (ed) The Making of Women: Oxford Essays in Feminism (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1917)Google Scholar; Bland, L Banishing the Beast: English Feminism and Sexual Morality 1885–1914 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1995)Google Scholar; Jeffreys, S The Spinster and her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality 1880–1930 (London: Pandora, 1985)Google Scholar; Kent, SK Sex and Suffrage in Britain 1860–1914 (London: Routledge, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mappin, E Helping Women at Work: The Women's Industrial Council 1889–1914 (London: Hutchinson, 1985).Google Scholar

64. Kemp, above n 11, p 32; Adams, above n 31, p 80.

65. NS, above n 20, vol 1, p 36.

66. Curthoys, above n 15, p 362.

67. Collet, a friend of the first woman law graduate, Eliza Orme, did not call herself a feminist, but her research both for the Board of Trade and, earlier, for Booth's survey of the London poor, did more than anything else to alert the authorities to the harsh reality of many women's working lives and, for that reason, did more than anything else to improve them: D Doughan ‘Collet, Clara Elizabeth (1860–1948)’ODNB, above n 10; McDonald, D Clara Collet 1860–1948 (London: Woburn Press, 2004)Google Scholar; Hutchins, above n 63, pp 131–133; McFeely, MD Lady Inspectors: The Campaign for a Better Workplace 1893–1921 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988).Google Scholar

68. As noted by Patrick Polden (who has done much to fill the gaps); see ‘Portia's progress: women at the Bar in England, 1919–1939’ (2005) 12 International Journal of the Legal Profession 293 at 319–320CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Ray Strachey, eg, in the first published history of the first wave of feminism, The Cause (1928), mentions Cornelia Sorabji as a legal pioneer but not Bertha Cave, Ivy Williams or Gwyneth Bebb – despite the fact that Strachey was chairwoman of the Committee for the Admission of Women to the Legal Profession at the point when admission was won. See Alberti, J Beyond Suffrage: Feminists in War and Peace, 1914–28 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989) p 33 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the references in n 56 above.

69. Jack Hills, Conservative MP for Durham City since 1906, had been influential in the anti sweating movement that led to the Liberal government's Trades Boards Act 1909. Perhaps he met Miss Bebb in connection with this. His pivotal role in the campaign to admit women to the legal profession goes unmentioned in his ODNB entry, where his main claim to fame is his writings on fly fishing: EHH Green ‘Hills, John Waller (1867–1938)’ODNB, above n 10.

70. ‘Women and the law: a High Court test case’The Times 21 January 1913; ‘Women as solicitors: Varsity girls sue the Law Society’Express 21 January 1913. NS, above n 20, vol 1, p 1.

71. Initially it seems that Maud Ingram was to be the test case plaintiff (‘A Girton girl, through her solicitors, will ask the Law Society to show cause why she should not be registered as a solicitor’Daily Telegraph 11 January 1913). Maud Crofts Scrapbook (CS) vol 1, p 1 (in the Women's Library, London). It seems to have been settled by May 1913 that Miss Bebb would take the case. Queen 24 May 1913, NS, above n 20, vol 1, pp 1–2. Miss Bebb was rejected by the Law Society in February 1913 but Miss Ingram's letter of rejection was dated 10 June 1913 – a copy is in CS, vol 1, p 4.

72. This concerned women's right to stand for election to County Councils. The judge in that case was Stephen J (Sir James Fitzjames Stephen), uncle to her future husband, Adrian, the barrister brother of Virginia Woolf, and father of Katharine Stephen, principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, 1911–20. Jack Hills MP had been married to Stella Duckworth (1869–1897), half sister to Adrian Stephen, a further link to the campaigners.

73. Lady Strachey was a friend of suffrage leader Millicent Fawcett; Philippa, one of her ten surviving children, was secretary to the Fawcett Society; another, Pernel, became Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge. Lytton Strachey was their brother. Askwith, B Two Victorian Families (London: A & C Black, 1971).Google Scholar

74. Best known today as the author of the first history of first wave British feminism, The Cause (1928). She was later the first Chair of the Cambridge University Women's Appointments Board (1930–1939). See Alberti, above n 68; and B Caine ‘Strachey, Rachel Pearson Conn [Ray] (1887–1940)’ODNB, above n 10.

75. ‘Women lawyers’ (1912) 8 Solicitor's Journal, 25 May; CS, above n 71. See also Jenkins, M ‘Girl power: focus women solicitors’ (1997) December, Law Society Gazette 23.Google Scholar

76. This achievement was noted in, inter alia, the Daily Telegraph, Yorkshire Post, Sunday Times, Westminster Gazette, Globe, Daily Graphic, Western Daily Press, Queen, Bayswater Chronicle, Common Cause and (on account of her father's business) the Ironmonger– evidence of the widespread public interest in women's higher education and/or their legal aspirations at this time, as well as the campaigners' highly developed sense of the value of publicity: NS, above n 20, vol 1, p 30.

77. Evening Standard 11 March 1913; ibid, p 1. Maud Ingram's invitation is in CS, above n 71, vol 1, p 11. The Lyceum Club was a club for professional women founded by Constance Smedley in 1903. It was intended to provide for women the kind of intellectual venue and support network enjoyed by men at their clubs, with discussion meetings, dances, concerts and a bureau of services. At the time it was located at 128 Piccadilly, now the RAF Club: Doughan, D and Gordon, P Women, Clubs and Associations in Britain (London: Routledge, 2006) p 36.Google Scholar

78. Nairn and Others v University of St Andrew's and Others[1909] AC 147. One of the first women admitted to Edinburgh University, Macmillan had first class honours in mathematics and philosophy and an MA in philosophy from Berlin. She was active in the suffrage movement and, once the legal profession had been opened to women, entered Middle Temple and was called to the Bar in 1924: S Oldfield ‘Macmillan, (Jessie) Chrystal (1872–1937)’ODNB, above n 10.

79. Evening Standard 11 March 1913; also reported in the Daily News and Leader of the same date. CS, above n 71, pp 1 and 10.

80. 11 March 1913, in PI Cuttings Scrapbook (in the Women's Library, London).

81. NS, above n 20, vol 1, p 1. See also Lang, above n 56, pp 148–149.

82. In contrast to Miss Nettlefold who, we are told, had been presented at court and enjoyed lawn tennis, croquet and boating, while Miss Ingram was a tennis ‘blue’ and had captained the Cambridge Women's Team against Oxford for 2 years running. Unattributed, undated cuttings in NS, above n 20, vol 1, opening unnumbered pages.

83. 10 October 13, ibid, vol 1, p 7.

84. CS, above n 71, vol 1, p 12.

85. Queen 24 May 1913; NS, above n 20, vol 1, p 2.

86. Then a successful Chancery QC, bencher of Lincoln's Inn, Standing Counsel to Oxford University, and Liberal MP for Keighley: W Goodhart ‘Buckmaster, Stanley Owen, first Viscount Buckmaster (1861–1934)’ODNB, above n 10.

87. Joyce J had been one of the tribunal judges convened to hear (and dismiss) Miss Cave's appeal against being refused admission to Gray's Inn in 1903. ‘Bebb, G.M. v the Law Society: notes of proceedings and judgment’, p 40, NS, above n 20, vol 2 (in back sleeve). Aged 74 at the time of the Bebb trial, he retired from the Bench 2 years later: HG Hanbury ‘Joyce, Sir Matthew Ingle (1839–1930)’ODNB, above n 10.

88. Bebb v The Law Society[1913] 109 LTR 36 at 39.

89. ‘Bebb v the Law Society in the High Court of Justice Chancery Division, 1 July 1913’, p 37, in NS, above n 20, vol 2 (in back sleeve).

90. Ibid, pp 37–38.

91. Ibid, p 20.

92. Ibid, p 27.

93. Eastern Morning News 9 October 1913, NS, above n 20, vol 1, p 5.

94. Eg ‘Women and the legal profession’, Holy Trinity Parish Hall, Eltham, December 1913, ibid, vol 1, p 8.

95. In Miss Nettlefold's Scrapbook there are cuttings with photographs of Miss Bebb and her companions outside the court – eg the Daily Mirror and the Daily Sketch, both of 11 December 1913: ibid, vol 1, p 10.

96. 71 year old Finlay had been Solicitor General and then Attorney General under the Salisbury and Balfour governments and was, at the time of the Bebb trial, both MP for Edinburgh and St Andrew's Universities and a practising KC: GR Rubin ‘Finlay, Robert Bannatyne, first Viscount Finlay (1842–1929)’ODNB, above n 10.

97. ‘Bebb, G.M. v the Law Society: notes of proceedings and judgment’, above n 87, p 43. Indeed, Nellie Franz was later to observe that one reason barristers were so opposed to women's admission was that they were attached to particular forms of entertainment which they were reluctant to reveal to women, let alone share with them (Franz, above n 56, p 277), an observation borne out by the experiences of the first women members of the Inns, and by Helena Kennedy half a century later: Kennedy, H Eve Was Framed: Women and British Justice (London: Chatto & Windus, 1992) pp 37–40.Google Scholar

98. Bebb v The Law Society, above n 1, at 294.

99. Mary Bull 17 Jan 1914. NS, above n 20, vol 1, p 13.

100. 16 December 13; ibid, vol 1, p 13. Pearson and Sachs argue this (above n 58, at 401).

101. NS, above n 20, vol 1, p.10. The Sydney Evening News of 27 January 1914 concluded that they were! Ibid, vol 1, pp 12–13.

102. 11 December 1913; ibid, p 10.

103. The Dublin Express found the idea of women barristers ‘too alarming to contemplate’ and feared women would want entry into every profession including the Army, Navy and Church (16 March 1914; ibid, vol 1, p 16), while the Belfast Evening Telegraph wrote: ‘What a laughing stock we would be if we had Mrs. Justice Smith going on circuit’– a comment demonstrating the lack of reasoned argument that characterised much of the opposition. This report was also critical of the ‘shrieking sisterhood’ and insisted that few women had ambitions to be lawyers. 11 December 1913; ibid, vol 1, p 11.

104. 6 February 1914; ibid, vol 1, p 13.

105. 11 December 1913; ibid, vol 1, p 12.

106. Eastern Morning News 9 October 1913; ibid, vol 1, p 5.

107. Evening Standard 11 March 1913; ibid, vol 1, p 1.

108. Polden, above n 68, p 294.

109. Manchester Courier 14 January 1914; NS, above n 20, vol 1, p 14.

110. Manchester Guardian 3 February, 10 February and 3 October 1914; Liverpool Daily Courier 6 March 1914; Common Cause 3 April 1914; ibid, vol 1, pp 14–15 and 18–19.

111. Ibid, vol 1, pp 16–29, including some by the litigants themselves, eg Maud Ingram's ‘Why we want women solicitors: the woman's point of view’Evening News 14 March 1914 (at p 17).

112. Ibid, vol 1, p 44. Polden, above n 68, pp 294 and 332.

113. Markham, V Return Passage (London: Oxford University Press, 1953) p 99.Google ScholarMarkham was a friend of Jack Hills and had been among the 1914 deputation to the Lord Chancellor to plead for government support for the Bill to open the solicitors' profession to women. Markham and Hills were both opposed to votes for women before the war, allies of Mrs Humphrey Ward's anti suffrage organisation. It is curious now to recognise that people who opposed votes for women could nevertheless be enthusiastic supporters of women's claim to become lawyers; and interesting, too, that the movement united people from across the political spectrum: Hills was a Conservative, Markham a Liberal, while Margaret Bondfield, another supporter, became a Labour MP. Markham and Hills were converted to the suffrage cause after the war.

114. Ibid, pp 150–153. Markham does not mention Miss Bebb in her autobiography, but she was close to Miss Nettlefold and remained friends for the rest of her life (p 153). See also H Jones ‘Markham, Violet Rosa (1872–1959)’ODNB, above n 10.

115. Braybon, G and Summerfield, P Out of the Cage: Women's Experiences in Two World Wars (London: Pandora, 1987) pp 99–103.Google Scholar

116. Daily Express 3 December 1919; NS, above n 20, vol 1, p 106.

117. Birmingham Mail 2 December 1922; CS, above n 71, vol 1, p 16. Sybil Campbell joined Middle Temple in 1920 and was one of the first women called to the Bar in 1922. She went on to become the first woman professional judge when she was appointed as a stipendiary magistrate in 1945. Polden, P ‘The Lady of Tower Bridge: Sybil Campbell, England's first woman judge’ (1999) 8 Women's History Review 505 at 509–510CrossRefGoogle Scholar; S Oldfield ‘Campbell, Sybil (1889–1977)’ODNB, above n 10.

118. Thorpe, AW (ed) Burke's Handbook to the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (London: Burke Publishing Company, 1921) pp 510–511.Google Scholar

119. ‘Lucky’ according to the ideology of the time: as Jane Lewis wrote, ‘For all women marriage conferred a higher status than spinsterhood, which connoted failure’: Lewis, J Women in England 1870–1950 (Brighton: Wheatsheaf, 1984) p 3.Google Scholar

120. Ibid.

121. M Bravington ‘Oh, that glass ceiling...more of a bar than a gate’ (2009) Criminal Law and Justice Weekly, 8 August, available at http://www.criminallawandjustice.co.uk.

122. Information from Gwyneth Thomson's granddaughter.

123. Eg Bebb's review of Wilfred Hooper's The Englishwoman's Legal Guide in Common Cause, 20 February 1914; NS, vol 1, p 8; Ingram's ‘Why we want women solicitors: the woman's point of view’ in the Evening News 14 March 1914; ibid, vol 1, p 17; Nettlefold's ‘How soon will women be solicitors?’Votes for Women October 1917; ibid, vol 1, p 66.

124. Ibid, vol 2, p 35.

125. Eg Millicent Fawcett, Clementina Black and Eva Gore Booth.

126. Eg Dr Louisa Garrett Anderson and Violet Markham.

127. Eg actresses Lena Ashwell and Clara Butt, writers Elizabeth Robins and Olive Schreiner.

128. Eg classical scholar Jane Harrison, as well as current, former and future college principals Emily Davies, Barbara Clough, Henrietta Jex Blake, Emily Penrose, Eleanor Sidgwick and Katharine Stephen.

129. Eg Margaret Bondfield, Susan Lawrence, Mary Macarthur and Eleanor Rathbone.

130. Handwritten MS ‘Women and the legal profession’ p 4; NS, above n 20, vol 2, pp 35 and 49.

131. Ibid, vol 2, p 53.

132. With Lord Halsbury, moving rejection of the measure, still contending that women could not be lawyers because ‘a woman had no recognition of any side but her own’: Franz, above n 56, p 275.

133. 9 & 10 Geo Ch 71.

134. As claimed by Alberti, above n 68, p 7. But Miss Nettlefold says it was a weaker measure than Labour's proposed Emancipation Bill. Notes made by Miss George, p 5, above n 20.

135. Adam, R A Woman's Place 1910–1975 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1975) pp 78–79.Google Scholar

136. Skordaki, above n 56, at 10.

137. Ibid.

138. 5 April 1921, quoted in Adam, above n 135, p 79.

139. Evening Mail 9 March 1920; NS, above n 20, vol 2, p 3.

140. Pall Mall Gazette 17 January 1927; ibid, vol 2, pp 38–39.

141. Wade, above n 5, p 39.

142. Polden, above n 68, at 294, quoting Lincoln's Inn Black Books 2001, p 7.

143. Bravington, above n 121; notes made by Miss George, above n 20, p 5.

144. Bravington, above, n 121. Lincoln's Inn was Lord Buckmaster's Inn, which may account for Miss Bebb's choice.

145. NS, above n 20, vol 2, p 2. She was not the first woman to be admitted to Lincoln's Inn – that was Marjorie Powell, who was admitted on 27 January 1920. Presumably the delay was due to her recent accouchement.

146. Letter to Jean McWilliam, 20 October 1920 in Holtby, W [Holtby, A and McWilliam, J (eds)] Letters to a Friend (London: Collins, 1937) p 20.Google ScholarThe five colleges were Somerville, Lady Margaret Hall, St Hugh's, St Hilda's, and St Anne's, which had formerly been the Society of Home Students.

147. Her husband Adrian Stephen, a barrister, also re trained as a psychiatrist. See Milner, M ‘Karin Stephen: 1889–1953’ (1954) 35 International Journal of Psyoanalysis 432.Google Scholar

148. NS, above n 20, vol 2, p 33.

149. After her father's death in 1944 she became joint managing director with her brother until her retirement in 1948. Active in the British Federation of University Women, she went on to have a second career in public service and local government (as a Conservative), always with a focus on women's causes, and was a member of the Royal Commission on Equal Pay in 1945. She retired to South Africa, where she died in 1966: J Haynes, entry in Genesis Catalogue at the Women's Library, London.

150. DM Ford ‘Women solicitors’Daily News 8 April 1921; Daily Graphic 2 December 1922. CS, above n 71, vol 1, pp 15 and 33.

151. After marriage to a fellow solicitor, John Crofts, she became a partner in the Westminster firm of Crofts, Ingram and Wyatt and Co. During the 1920s she was much in demand as a journalist, lecturer and broadcaster, commenting particularly on women's legal issues; she acted as legal adviser to feminist groups like Lady Rhondda's Six Point Group, and wrote a well received book, Women Under English Law (1925), with a foreword by Millicent Fawcett. Carrie Morrison was the first woman to be admitted as a solicitor. Jervis, M ‘Girl power: Focus Women Solicitors’ (1997) December, Law Society Gazette 23.Google Scholar

152. 29 December 1919; NS, above n 20, vol 1, p 106. The Evening News and the Daily Express made similar reports, the latter describing her as ‘a clever and attractive young Welshwoman’. 30 December 1919; ibid, vol 1, p 107.

153. Daily Sketch 30 December 1919; ibid.

154. Daily Graphic 16 February 1918; ibid, vol 1, pp 67–68; Lady's Pictorial 27 July 1920; ibid, vol 2, p 19.

155. In the event, this honour went to neither of them. Ivy Williams, whose terms were shortened in recognition of her academic achievements, emerged as the first woman to be called to the English Bar, on 22 May 1922, though she never practised. Monica Geikie Cobb was the first woman to hold a brief (Sybil Campbell was the second) and Helena Normanton the first to hold a brief at the High Court. ‘Women lawyers’Birmingham Mail 2 December 1922; CS, above n 71, vol 1, p 15; Lang, above n 56, p 166.

156. Nd; NS, above n 20, vol 1, p 106.

157. Ibid, vol 1, p 117.

158. ‘Women and the law: the first students’Daily Telegraph nd [December 1919?]; ibid, vol 1, p 107.

159. Woman's Leader 12 March 1920, and reports in other papers; ibid, vol 1, pp 111 and 116.

160. Lang, above n 56, p 164.

161. See NS, above n 20, vol 1, p 108.

162. Lang, above n 56, pp 164–165.

163. Scotsman 9 March 1920; NS, above n 20, vol 2, p 3.

164. Manchester Guardian 9 March 1920; ibid.

165. Ibid.

166. Ibid.

167. Women's Leader 12 March 1920; ibid, vol 2, p 5. See also Lang, above n 56, pp 165–166.

168. Menu in NS, ibid, vol 2, p 63.

169. 9 March 1920; ibid, vol, 2 p 3.

170. Manchester Guardian 10 March 1920; ibid, vol 2, p 4. Although (perhaps on the basis of this report) it has been suggested that the campaigners avoided claiming a special role for women lawyers, in contrast to the special role identified for women doctors, in fact many of them did declare a need for women to assist women clients in particular fields (which did not include conveyancing) – for instance, divorce, sexual offences and domestic violence. Nettlefold, Handwritten MS, ‘Women and the legal profession’; ibid, vol 2, p 51. Helena Normanton told the Ladies' Pictorial in 1918 that women's interests would be best protected by women lawyers, and even referred to the need to end the ludicrously lax treatment of men who killed their wives. 6 April 1912; ibid, vol 1, p 75. But these discussions tended to take place outside the legal environment; within it, the goal was plainly to win the debate on the gender neutral ‘legal’ grounds acceptable to men.

171. Daily Express 10 March 1920; ibid, vol 2, p 2.

172. Brittain, V Testament of Experience (London: Gollancz, 1957) p 60.Google ScholarThe baby was the future MP Shirley Williams.

173. Jalland, P Women, Marriage and Politics 1840–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ch date) pp 159 and 171.Google Scholar

174. Quoted in Dyhouse, C Feminism and the Family in England 1880–1939 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989) p 105.Google Scholar

175. Lewis, above n 119, pp 117–118.

176. Ibid.

177. Willocks, J Essentials of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, 1986) p 90.Google Scholar

178. This is all detailed on her death certificate.

179. Dr AL Galabin A Manual of Midwifery (1900) pp 741 and 282, quoted in Jalland, P and Hooper, J (eds) Women from Birth to Death: The Female Life Cycle in Britain 1830–1914 (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1986) p 208.Google Scholar

180. Bravington, above n 121.

181. Information from Gwyneth Thomson's granddaughter.

182. Ibid. However, Gordon Bebb QC is the grandson of one of Miss Bebb's brothers.

183. Birks, above n 56, p 278.

184. Franz, above n 56, p 274.

185. Manchester, above n 2.

186. See comment on Christabel Pankhurst, above n 83.

187. Eg, in Jocelynne Scutt's fantasy about how the how the principle of equal pay found its way on to the Versailles Treaty. Miss Bebb plays a leading role in this fantasy, but it is clear that Scutt knew nothing about her beyond the fact that she figured in the Bebb case – not even her Christian name – and she wrongly describes her as ‘the first woman to graduate in Law from Oxford University’: JA Scutt ‘Alarums and excursions: infiltrating at the Palace of Versailles’ (2006) 75/6 Australian Rationalist 50 at 56.

188. See above n 79.

189. Parry, above n 3, at 220.

190. Sincere thanks are due to researcher and genealogist Hilary Clare; the former archivist of St Hugh's College, Deborah Quare; and members of Miss Bebb's family Anne Tickell, Martin Tomlins and Gordon Bebb QC.