Beatrice Honour Davy

Davy was born in Exeter in 1885. Her father was a physician and the Sheriff of Exeter in 1887 and he was Sir Henry Davy after the war when he was knighted for his work. Her mother was a solicitor's daughter Beatrice Mary (born Tucker) who was her father's first wife as she died in 1906.[1]

During the first world war her only brother was killed and she assisted Dame Georgina Buller in organising the Devon Group of War Hospitals.[2]

The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act was passed in 1919 allowing women to be lawyers and in 1921 she graduated from King’s College, London with a LLB law degree. She became a student member of the Middle Temple on 24 January 1920.[3] In 17 December 1922 she was admitted to the Middle Temple among the first eight women to be allowed entry.[4] In 1923, she was the first woman to be a barrister at the Devon Assizes in Exeter.[2] She won the divorce case for the abandoned husband in Weber v. Weber & Payne. Three years later she joined The Inner Temple, ad eundem.[4]

Davy practised law in London in the first British law firm run exclusively by women, with legal partner Edith Annie Berthen in 1931[4] Later Madge Easton Anderson was articled to that firm.[5] Anderson would become the first woman qualified to practice as a solicitor in both England and Scotland in 1937 and in the same year she would become a partner in Berthen's and Davy's law firm.[4]

Davy practised law until 1951.[4] She died in Woodmancote in 1966. She left her estate to a friend, Elizabeth Hunt.[3]