By Dr Caroline Derry10 May 2021
On 25 May 1921, The Times published the bar final examination results. For the first time, the list of successful candidates included a woman: Olive Catherine Clapham. The newspaper marked this milestone with a short article highlighting her achievement, headlined ‘The First Woman Barrister’.
Dr Caroline Derry
That headline was of course inaccurate. The exams were only one step towards qualification, though an important one. Clapham still had to keep six more dining terms at her Inn of Court, Middle Temple (pictured), before she could be called to the bar, which would take at least 18 months. However, The Times was not alone in being carried away. The Law Coach, a publication for law students, whose editor Edgar Hammond had tutored Clapham for the exams, pointed out The Times’ error but added one of its own: Clapham ‘will no doubt be the first woman barrister in the course of a week or two’.