Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919
23 December 1919 | |
Repealed | 1 October 2010 |
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Other legislation | |
Amended by |
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Repealed by | Equality Act 2010 |
Status: Repealed | |
Text of statute as originally enacted | |
Revised text of statute as amended |
The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 was an
Provisions of the act
The basic purpose of the act was, as stated in its
A person shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage from the exercise of any public function, or from being appointed to or holding any civil or judicial office or post, or from entering or assuming or carrying on any civil profession or vocation, or for admission to any incorporated society (whether incorporated by Royal Charter or otherwise), [and a person shall not be exempted by sex or marriage from the liability to serve as a juror] ...[3]
The Crown was given the power to regulate the admission of women to the civil service by Orders in Council, and judges were permitted to control the gender composition of juries.
By section 2, women were to be admitted as solicitors after serving three years only if they possessed a university degree which would have qualified them if male, or if they had fulfilled all the requirements of a degree at a university which did not, at the time, admit women to degrees.
By section 3, no statute or charter of a university was to preclude university authorities from regulating the admission of women to membership or degrees.
By section 4, any orders in council, royal charters, or statutory provisions which were inconsistent with this Act were to cease to have effect.[1]
Effects of the act
Women had previously been given a (limited)
The act came into force on the day it became law, 23 December 1919; the first female
The act was, by the standards of its time, astonishingly broad. It only addressed three areas specifically – the Civil Service, the courts, and the universities – leaving all other areas to the sweeping alterations made by section 1. Francis Bennion later described it as "splendidly general", arguing that it went "further in emancipating women than [did] the Sex Discrimination Act 1975".[8]
However, the act was rarely invoked by the courts – the first court case to rule based on it was
Much of the act has been repealed, although the first part of section 1 remains in force (in Scotland it was repealed in relation to criminal proceedings by the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975), as well as the whole of section 3.[12]
A 2016 study of the inclusion of women on juries from 1918 to 1926 at the Old Bailey (London) finds that
the inclusion of females had little effect on overall conviction rates but resulted in a large and significant increase in convictions for sex offences and on the conviction rate differential between violent crime cases with female versus male victims. The inclusion of women also increased the likelihood of juries being discharged without reaching a verdict on all charges and the average time taken to reach a verdict. A complementary analysis of cases in which the jury was carried over from a previous trial also implies that the inclusion of female jurors on the seated jury sharply increased conviction rates for violent crimes against women versus men.[13]
A 2017 study looking at female jurors outside London during the first decade after the 1919 Act found that the picture was highly localised, but that one common feature throughout England and Wales was a decline in the number of women serving on juries. In the Midlands, the average assize jury went from having between 3.3 and 2.9 women in 1921, to having between 2.0 and 2.4 in 1929. In the south of England (excluding London), the average jury went from having between 2.0 and 1.3 women per jury in 1921 to an average of just 0.8 by the end of the decade. Juries usually had no female members when they were trying sexual offences whose victim was neither female nor a child, as sex between men and acts of bestiality were considered too shocking for men and women to deliberate on together. In most regions, all-male juries were uncommon for property offences, presumably because trials for theft and other similar offences were considered suitable subjects for men and women to deliberate on together. There were also regional differences. In the southeast of England, all-male juries were particularly unusual for trials concerning homicide and offences against the state. In south Wales, the same was true for non-fatal offences against the person; and in southwest England, there were fewer all-male juries in sexual offence trials involving female victims. In the Midlands, where there were generally more female jurors anyway, there were no differences beyond the general trends noted above regarding male-only sexual offences and property offences.[14]
Subsequent reforms made the juror franchise more restrictive than it had been immediately after 1919. In December 1920, ten towns that had previously not been required to consider the wealth of the people they were selecting for jury service were newly required to do so. Crosby has found that this resulted in an immediate decrease in the number of women serving on these towns' juries. Two years later, the law was changed again so that all jurors now had to be registered to vote in the same place that they held their landed property. When this change was proposed, Parliamentary counsel noted that "In the case ... of (e.g.) a daughter who resides with her father in a house occupied by him and owns a small estate somewhere in the country, the position is that she is at present qualified as a juror, but in future she will not be. There are not, however, I should suppose, very many such cases, and I should think such as there are can safely be disregarded."[15]
Legacy
In 2019 the act was commemorated by the First 100 Years project, to recognise the impact of women in law since the act becoming law.[16]
Further reading
Footnotes
- short titlesomits the comma after the word "Act".
References
- ^ a b Oliver & Boyd's new Edinburgh almanac and national repository for the year 1921. p. 213
- ^ Takayanagi, Mari (2012). Parliament and Women, c. 1900–1945 (PDF) (PhD thesis). King's College London.
- ^ Passage in brackets repealed by the Criminal Justice Act 1972; other parts of s.1 repealed by the Courts Act 1971 and Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1989.
- ^ About Magistrates – History Archived 19 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine, The Magistrates' Association.
- ^ About the Association of Women Solicitors Archived 15 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ "Frances Kyle and Averil Deverell: The Irish women who raised the bar". BBC News. 7 November 2021. Retrieved 3 January 2022.
- ^ Derry, Caroline (10 May 2021). "Olive Clapham – 'first woman barrister'". Law Gazette. Retrieved 15 March 2024.
- ^ a b The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 – 60 Inglorious Years Archived 16 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine – F.A.R. Bennion, 129 New Law Journal (1979) 1088.
- [1966] 2 QB 633, [1966] 1 All E.R. 689, 700. See Bennion (1979) for discussion.
- [1922] 2 AC 339.
- ^ The Admission of Women to the House of Lords Archived 8 May 2004 at the Wayback Machine, Duncan Sutherland.
- ^ Text of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk.
- doi:10.3386/w21960.
- S2CID 149357894.
- S2CID 150306872.
- ^ The First 100 Years website