Edwards v A-G of Canada (1930)
Edwards v A-G of Canada, one of the so-called ‘Persons cases’ established that women were people in law for the first time.
The Foundation of the Association of Women Solicitors
‘The history of the AWS should serve as an inspiration and a warning. Impressively a small cohort of women solicitors… had succeeded in founding an organisation to support each other, had maintained it through economic recessions and war… But its subsequent gradual demise demonstrates how an organisation can all but disappear through a laudable desire for expansion coupled with an unrealistic reliance on income which was not self-generated.’
Elizabeth Cruickshank
Article 7 of the Covenant of the League of Nations 1919
As a direct result of women’s lobbying at the 1919 Peace Conference, Article 7 of the Covenant of the League of Nations stated that its Secretariat – an international civil service – would be open to both women and men.
Appointment of the First Women Justices of the Peace, 1919
After centuries of all-male law courts, the introduction of women JPs was not simply a legal landmark but a revolution. Today just over half of all JPs are women.
Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919
The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 made sex and marriage no longer an automatic bar to the professions and, in particular, enabled women to enter the legal and other professions.
A Pageant of Great Women
A Pageant of Great Women, by Cicely Hamilton, presented arguments for women’s enfranchisement.
Representation of the People Act 1918
The Representation of the People Act 1918 gave women over 30 the parliamentary vote.