By Florence Strawford, Women in Law Ambassador at the Cardiff Women in Law Society
‘Men say the law is too rough and tumble for women’ (Carrie Morrison, 1922)
Carrie Morrison, the first woman to qualify as a solicitor in the UK, is a little-known name among Law students, professors, and the general public, but the story of her admission is an intriguing one, and her work has been crucially overlooked.
Morrison was one of four women who all passed their respective exams, but it was decided only one of them could qualify. To identify who should qualify, the four women raced down Chancery Lane in London to the doors of the Law Society, and the first to reach the doors would be the one to be admitted as a solicitor. Carrie Morrison was the victor. The fact that these four women had this somewhat ridiculous condition put on their admission, despite receiving the same qualifications as male solicitors, serves to highlight the disparity in professions that were previously exclusively reserved for men.
It may seem as though Morrison’s qualification is a story that could inspire and empower women; however, her qualification period was shorter due to her work as a clerk at MI5 during the First World War. After the Sex Disqualification Act 1919, attitudes towards women and their work lives began to change, and there were 3000 less solicitors than when the war broke out, so it could certainly be said that sheer desperation led people to be more open to female lawyers. Therefore, the real story of the inequalities of all aspects of the working sphere, including qualification, is obscured. This was something Morrison was extremely vocal about, particularly regarding the inequality of the cost of qualification, which was a significant barrier to women.
This is not to undermine Morrison’s extensive work; she was a ‘pro bono lawyer’, providing low fee services in London, and often took on cases that would have been socially challenging and controversial in the 1900’s. She acted on the behalf of sex workers in court and advocated vehemently for divorce law reform. She was often seen as setting a high standard of determination and dedication in her profession from which the women who came after her took inspiration from, along with her modern point of view regarding gender equality that would have seemed extremely foreign in the social landscape Morrison worked in.
Focusing solely on pioneer narratives like Morrison’s characterises the study of exceptional people as commonplace, when in reality few people neatly fit into this model. Having a profound focus on individuals skews the reality of collective activism, especially when referring to gender equality, where women were often met with the perspective that they were taking jobs away from men or they could not join certain professions because they had never been a part of them. Nevertheless, Morrison’s story is one that is important to tell in that it puts the gender inequality that permeated the UK’s legal system into the spotlight.