Madge... the commemorative plaque
The official presentation marking the installation of Madge Easton Anderson’s Historic Environment Scotland plaque took place on Wednesday 2 November.
The occasion opened with the unveiling of the plaque on the Stair Building, Professors’ Square, by HES representative Ranald MacInnes, and an introduction by the Head of School, Professor Jane Mair, and Deputy Head of School, Professor Maria Fletcher, who spoke on behalf of the First 100 Years team.
It was followed by a celebratory event in the Law workshop, which provided an opportunity for Dr Charlie Peevers to present the School’s 'knitting our heritage’ patchwork blanket. The blanket, framed by graduation gown material and encased in glass, was created by the School’s knitting collective to represent the first 100 (102!) women to graduate from Glasgow’s School of Law.
At the gathering, Dr Pat Lucie, University of Glasgow archivist, shared her thoughts on Anderson’s legacy, the first 100 years of women in law - and what ‘our Madge’ might have made of the honour:
“I have two visions of Madge Easton Anderson standing here…
The first is of a young woman. It’s 1920 and she’s very familiar with the Stair Building (though at that time she’d know it as the home of one of the most esteemed professors). She has every reason to feel proud. She has three degrees, an M.A., a B.L. and an LL.B. One of Glasgow’s most respected law firms, Maclay, Murray and Spens has testified to her abilities as their apprentice. The Court of Session has yielded before her arguments as to why the last impediments to admitting her as a solicitor be removed. Madge Anderson, aged 24, is poised to enter the world as the first woman law graduate of Glasgow; the first woman solicitor in Scotland; the first woman solicitor in the U.K.
It hasn’t all been plain sailing. She came from a modest family background with no legal connections. A bursary from Hutchesons’ Grammar School opened doors which that quiet, disciplined, academic young woman was determined would lead to a career of her choosing. If she already had her sights set on becoming a solicitor she may have known that because she was a woman and therefore not a ‘person’ by ‘inveterate usage’ it was not a choice that was currently open to her. The way ahead was daunting and it was also lonely. At a time when women were finding a kind of sisterhood in the suffrage movement, or making their way into Medicine in increasing numbers, the Faculty of Law was almost a female- free planet. Two or three women had matriculated in the years before Madge but had abandoned their studies. She sat alone in a class of men, quietly demonstrating her equal and often superior aptitude for Law. So outnumbered, her strategy was simply to demonstrate that she could do the job as well as a man. And so every day she would shuttle between classroom and office, probably by tram. Not marching. Not publishing. Not campaigning in any other way but by example and determination. By 1920 she was as well-equipped as any new entrant to grasp the possibilities of a life in law. She would perhaps be a little surprised tonight to find her achievement publicly celebrated and to discover that women were now in a majority. But mightn’t she also have said, ‘Why not?’
My second vision is of an older Madge Anderson, ‘Miss Anderson’ now rather than Madge. It’s about 1980 and she has enjoyed sixty years since her admission to the profession. It had taken her a little while to find her way. She had worked for a few years in the firm of Steuart and Gillies in the Twenties, had a short spell as a single practitioner and …remarkably.. returned to the Law Faculty in 1931 to begin a PhD, in Public International Law (a feat which no woman accomplished at GU until 1982). She was still trying to open doors but without, as yet, the clear sight of a settled career ahead. Interestingly, her breakthrough would come, not in a Glasgow law office or from academia but when she made some very important networks through two women’s organisations.
From 1920 to 1930 she volunteered with the women of the Queen Margaret Settlement. Part of the wider settlement movement, it reached out to the poorest part of the city to provide a range of social clubs and services. Madge Anderson’s contribution was as a Poor Man’s lawyer, a role in which she gained experience of the law in a wider social context and made valuable contacts. She also joined the Soroptimists, an international organisation dedicated to peace and the widening of educational opportunities for women. In1927 she became its first Glasgow Secretary. Through these organisations she made important connections to a network of similarly situated professional women. In 1933 she accepted an offer to join two of them in their London law practice. Edith Berthern and Beatrice Davy were both Soroptimists, both newly qualified English solicitors. Edith Berthern, like Madge, had been a Poor Man’s lawyer. Miss Anderson left her PhD unfinished, qualified in English Law (the first woman to qualify in both jurisdictions) and became a partner in the London firm of Messrs Berthern, Davy and Anderson.
We meet her now in her eighties, at the end of life, retired to Perthshire, looking after her cats and garden. She must have had a glow of pride looking back on the many challenges she had risen to meet. She had found a way of working in which Berthern, Davy and Anderson were their own masters. For the women who followed in her wake, however, change came at a glacial pace. At Glasgow only an average of three women a year graduated in law between the two world wars and there were occasional years when there were none. Of Glasgow’s fifty-nine women law graduates only 14 of them qualified professionally. By 1939 only 38 women in the whole of Scotland had been admitted to the profession. Miss Anderson hated the waste. Speaking to the women of Hutchesons’ Grammar FPs in 1939 she blamed marriage and child care for derailing so many trained, educated women. She remained unmarried, like most of the women who continued in practice. Very few of the first women lawyers, however, challenged the root and branch causes of discrimination both in the profession and in the law itself.
I see the elderly Miss Anderson looking at you, amazed as you tell her of the women LLBs who have already passed through this building.. First Minister of Scotland, the Solicitor General, judges, sheriffs, professors, human rights lawyers, media figures, solicitors and advocates, fiscals…and there will be many more, NOT ALONE ANY MORE. Thank you.”
Sincere thanks to everyone who was able to join us to mark this occasion and especially to Professor Maria Fletcher for putting forward the HES nomination, which received a record number of votes!
You can find out more about Madge Easton Anderson here: https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/law/100years/100voices/madgeeastonanderson/
Learn more about the School’s ‘First 100 Years’ of women in law project and the ‘100 voices for 100 years’ digital exhibition: https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/law/100years/100voices/
