Legal trailblazer is in spotlight at last – thanks to women’s project
A Glasgow University team is giving Scotland’s first female solicitor her rightful place in history, writes Victoria Weldon
SHE was an unassuming pioneer who paved the way for women to join the legal profession – but her story was almost lost to history.
Madge Easton Anderson was the first woman to become a solicitor in the UK after a change in the law allowed females to enter the profession for the first time.
However, until recently, very little was known about the University of Glasgow graduate and her determined fight to practise law.
This month marks the 100th anniversary of a Court of Session judgment allowing her to become a professional solicitor, with the decision stating that the change in the law “put her in the position of a man”.
Her story has now risen to prominence thanks to a University of Glasgow project aimed at marking the centenary of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919.
Maria Fletcher, deputy head of the university’s school of law and co-lead on the project, said: “No-one had heard of her until a few years ago. It’s interesting, and very sad, that we’re only just really discovering her achievements.
“It’s part of the invisibilisation of women that is so prevalent in history.
“But she was the first to achieve many things – the first to graduate in Glasgow, the first in Scotland to become a lawyer, the first in the UK to become a lawyer, and the first to be a partner in an all-female firm.
“She was probably a very reluctant pioneer, and probably very modest about it, but when we look back from 100 years later and view it, she’s so important.”
Born in Glasgow in 1896, Ms Anderson was educated at Melville Street Primary School before going on to Hutchesons Girls’ Grammar School, where she received a bursary to help with her studies.
After leaving school, she studied an arts degree at the University of Glasgow, graduating with an MA in 1916.
The following year, she began the LLB course at the university, as well as an apprenticeship with Glasgow law firm Maclay, Murray and Spens (now Dentons) after partners John Spens and David Murray decided to give her a chance in the belief that women would soon be allowed to be admitted as law agents.
They were correct, and the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act was passed in 1919.
However, the Act did not automatically mean that Ms Anderson became a solicitor – despite her qualifications.
Researcher Dr Patricia Lucie, who recently had a detailed article about Ms Anderson’s life published in a legal journal, explained that she had to
petition the Court of Session to be admitted as a solicitor. “The Act was passed in 1919, but the problem was that Madge began her apprenticeship in 1917 and the Act wasn’t retrospective,” she said. “So the question was, could she be admitted as a solicitor?
“The terms of the 1873 Law Agents Act were that when you entered into an apprenticeship you had to register with the Incorporated Society of Law Agents and Madge had tried to do this when she started her apprenticeship, but she was told she couldn’t because women weren’t allowed to become solicitors. So it wasn’t her fault that she didn’t meet the requirements for the Act.
“The Court of Session managed to bridge the apparent gap between the new Act and the old regulations, and found that she was qualified as an entrant into the profession.”
In his judgment of December 1920, Lord Ashmore concluded that “the Act of 1919, in this matter of admission to the legal profession, has put the petitioner in the position of a man”.
However, Ms Anderson’s success did not open the floodgates. According to Dr Lucie, The Law Society’s figures for the whole of Scotland, showed just 38 women were admitted as law agents in the next two decades.
Ms Anderson went on to work as a “poor man’s lawyer” for 10 years, providing advice to those in the Anderston community of Glasgow who could otherwise not have afforded it.
In 1937, she qualified as a solicitor in England, making her the first woman to qualify in two jurisdictions in the UK, and went on to work in partnership with two other women – Edith Annie Berthan and Beatrice Honour Davy – in the first law firm in the UK run by women.
In 1951, she retired and moved to Perthshire where she spent the rest of her days until her death in 1982.
Her gravestone in a cemetery in the village of Bankfoot marks her achievements, stating: “A brilliant Glasgow University student and first woman solicitor in Scotland.”
Historic Environment Scotland recently approved a plaque to be installed in her honour at the University of Glasgow’s School of Law building. The university has also been running a project to mark the anniversary of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act. The 100 Voices for 100 Years project tells the tales of women who have graduated from the university’s law school – including First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
It’s part of the invisibilisation of women that is so prevalent in history