On 23 December 1919, The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act became law when it received Royal Assent. For the first time, women could become barristers, solicitors, jurors and magistrates. The very next day, Christmas Eve, the first seven women magistrates were appointed. They were:
• Lady Crewe
• Lady Londonderry
• Margaret Lloyd George
• Elizabeth Haldane
• Gertrude Tuckwell
• Beatrice Webb
• Mary Augusta Ward
Selected to represent different geographical areas and political parties, these were the first women to have a formal role in the courts. These seven women drew up a list of 172 more women suitable for appointment to the magistracy; this was published in July 1920 and included several non-militant campaigners for women’s suffrage.
Among the early magistrates were Ada Summers, Mayor of Stalybridge and the first woman to sit as a magistrate, Gertrude Tuckwell, founding member of the MA and the first woman to sit as a magistrate in London, and Margery Fry, long-term secretary of the Howard League for Penal Reform. Many of these women were political, such as Margaret Wintringham, who was the second woman to take a seat in the House of Commons, and Mavis Tate, an MP who campaigned for equal pay, better pensions and equal rights for women. Others were influential figures in youth justice, such as Clare Spurgin and Geraldine Cadbury, or authors, editors, philosophers, educators, nurses and doctors, to name just a few. Many of the women had been influential in the movement for women’s suffrage, and the majority were active in public life, sitting on various committees and involved in numerous organisations. All were trailblazers, and as magistrates they brought diversity to a previously male-dominated environment, paving the way for a modern magistracy that reflects the communities it serves.
Ten years after the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act, there were 1,775 women magistrates. By 1948, there were 3,700, making up nearly a quarter of the magistracy. Today, 100 years after women first joined the magistracy, 56% of all magistrates across England and Wales are women.
Read more about the early women magistrates through our December Twitter campaign or on our website.