Eliza Orme was an influential advocate for women's suffrage and her determination laid the foundations for women to enter the legal profession.
Perhaps I should have been more persistent.
Eliza Orme
In 1869, ten women arrived at Somerset House to sit the first ever General Examination for Women at University of London. Among them was Eliza Orme (1848 – 1937). Shortly after in 1872, as soon as UCL opened its lectures to women, she was one of the first women to walk through its doors as a full-time student.
Orme was tenacious and would go on to have a very successful legal career. However, it would be over 15 years after enrolling at UCL that Orme would be granted her law degree - making her the first woman in England to do so.
At university, Orme made close friends, including fellow law student and lifelong partner, Reina Emily Lawrence. They lived and worked together for decades - a relationship described as a “Boston marriage”. Orme passed her law exams with honours in 1878, but at the time the degree awarding body for UCL did not allow women to graduate and Orme was barred from entering the legal profession.
Undeterred, she opened her own office in Chancery Lane, drafting legal documents for prominent barristers and demonstrating that women could perform skilled legal work – though she received half the fees of her male counterparts. Orme was finally awarded her LLB – an official law degree - in 1888. Her work helped lay the foundation for the later entry of women into the profession after the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 lifted restrictions.
Orme was an influential advocate for women’s suffrage and a founding member of the Women’s Liberal Federation, using her legal knowhow to improve women’s employment and working conditions.
In 1893, she delivered a lecture on the legal status of women in England at the Congress on Jurisprudence and Law Reform in Chicago, the first legal congress to include women participants. The congress highlighted the barriers for women and inspired feminist legal conversations around the world.
With great persistence, Orme challenged exclusion, inequality and injustice, opening doors for the many women that came after her.
Photo (top): Signal Photos / Alamy
