Helena Normanton (1882–1957)

Helena Normanton was born in London, the daughter of a piano maker and his wife. In 1886, when she was four years old, her father was found dead, and her mother moved with her two young daughters to Brighton. There she ran a small grocery shop and turned the family home into a boarding house. Helena
won a scholarship to York Place Science School in Brighton (present-day Varndean School). On the death of her mother in 1900, she left school to help run the boarding house and look after her younger sister.

In 1903, Helena enrolled at the Edge Hill Teachers' Training College in Liverpool, and after qualifying, taught history in Glasgow and London. She began reading modern history at the University of London as an external student, and graduated with first class honors. She lectured in history at Glasgow University and London University, while becoming a key player in the campaign for women's suffrage, equal pay, and other feminist issues. One of her earliest writings was a pamphlet called Sex Differentiation in Salary, published in 1914. Pursuing her long-held ambition to become a barrister, she applied to the Middle Temple in 1918, but was refused. She applied again in 1919, within hours of the Disqualification (Removal) Act coming into effect, and became the first woman admitted. In 1921, she married Gavin Bowman Clark, but kept her maiden name. In 1922, she became the first woman to practice law in the UK and to represent cases at the High Court and the Old Bailey. In 1948, she was the first woman to prosecute a murder case, and, alongside Rose Heilbron, was the first woman to be appointed King’s Council in 1949. She was the first woman barrister to obtain a divorce for a client and campaigned tirelessly for divorce reform. A committed pacifist, she also campaigned for nuclear disarmament. In 1938, she co-founded the Married Women’s Association with Vera Brittain, Edith Summerskill and Helen Nutting. Her books included India in England (1915);
Oliver Quendon's First Case, a detective novel published under a pseudonym in 1927;
Everyday Law for Women (1932); and
The Trial of Mrs. Duncan (1945).