Helena Normanton and the Opening of the Bar to Women

A DEFINITIVE BIOGRAPHY OF THE FORERUNNER TO SHAPING A MODERN BAR:

THE COURAGEOUS PIONEER HELENA NORMANTON

An appreciation by Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers

We desperately need books like this excellent biography of Helena Normanton brilliantly researched by Judith Bourne. It is quite difficult for many people today to understand the sheer impossibility of "breaking the glass ceiling" as it is quaintly called in 21st century. Mary Jane Mossman's Foreword should be read first to set the scene of how the way has been paved for women at the modern Bar of today.

Normanton's story is a legal history lesson of past wrongs and inequalities, and disappointments. At last, we are seeing the sorts of problems which have beset so many who have wished to be called to the Bar in the past, explaining the Bar's sexist history to a new generation of lawyers as we begin to see more women reading for the Bar now and in future long-term practice.

The biography is well described by Waterside Press as the "first full-length account of Helena Normanton's life and career". Bourne describes Normanton's dramatic fight to join the Bar of England and Wales and to see it opened up to women with the most elegant prose and excellent detail, and, frankly, some sadness for her situation.

The publishers are to be commended for publishing this story at the right time for the Bar and for setting out how Normanton's ambition was "forged as a child after seeing her mother patronized by a solicitor" (how many of us have had to put up with that, we wonder!).

Bourne describes how the press were "quick to pigeon-hole and harass Normanton which lead to disciplinary proceedings for 'self-advertising'". And how things have changed for the modern Bar (thankfully, but very late in the day) although the author does place the social values and standards of the early and middle 20th century in their rightful historic setting.

As the book explains to its readers, "enmeshed in a world of men", Normanton "faced a constant struggle to establish herself against a backdrop of prejudice, misogyny and discrimination". Just remember, though, for balance that it's not just women who have faced this attitude which still persist in some quarters today.

Bourne goes on to describe a position many of us (men and women) have faced "when solicitors, fearful of the unknown, were reluctant to instruct her, leaving her to take on poor person's cases, dock briefs and those 'deemed suitable for a woman'". Sadly, it's only very recently that attitudes of sexual snobbery have changed for the better which is why this story has such importance for modern Counsel (of either sex).

Normanton was "a force to be reckoned with", and has the distinction that she is described as "not just the first woman to be admitted to an Inn of Court, hold briefs in the High Court and Old Bailey, and (with Rose Heilbron) be made a King's Counsel, but a prolific author, leading feminist and speaker who entranced audiences at home and abroad". Any reader can gauge from this main statement alone just a small part of what the struggle was like in "the old days". Thankfully, matters are much changed at the dawn of a new digital era for barristers.

It's most certainly a captivating book for all aspiring barristers to read and it covers the controversies which eternally surrounded her life, her progress and her foibles most fairly although one can easily become both angry and frustrated by what Normanton went through as a pioneer for her grit and aspiration.

The publication date is 2016.