Averil Katherine Statter Deverell
Barrister-at-law
Birth.
Averil Katherine Statter Deverell, daughter of William Deverell and Ada Statter Deverell, formerly Carr, was born on 2 January 1893, at 26 Leeson Park, Dublin.
Her father was a Solicitor
for further details, see the bio of her father.
She lived at "Ellesmere", Greystones.
published in The Irish Times, March 1979.
AVERIL K.S. DEVERELL
an appreciation.
"The Father of the Bar" is the unofficial title given by his fellow barristers to the member of the law library in the Four Courts who has been longest in practice.
On All Saints Day 1921, lady barristers appeared for the first time. Chronologically Miss Frances Christian Kyle was the first "called to the Bar". In a crowded court she received the congratulations of Lord Chief Justice Molony with whom sat Lord Justice Ronan and Lord Justice O'Connor. Miss Kyle, however, never practised at the Irish Bar.
Following, by a few minutes, Miss Averil K.S. Deverell received her call, as did her twin brother Captain W.B.S. Deverell (later Brig.-General). They were respectively daughter and son of the Clerk of the Crown and Peace for Co. Wicklow.
Miss Deverell, who had been presented at Court and later had served with distinction in ambulance work during the first World War, now took her place among her newly found brethren in the Law Library where till the day of her much lamented death last month, she was known as "Mother of the Bar", an appellation she highly prized.
During the intervening years she appeared in many cases and gave numerous written opinions on tangled legal subjects, finding time nevertheless to exercise her interest in the canine world.
All practising barristers in the past, and many in later years, carried their briefs, papers and textbooks, in a black "brief bag", an amorphous sack-like object which tightened by the drawing of ropes around its otherwise open top.
When junior barristers appeared for the first time before the House of Lords, the highest Court of Appeal in pre-Treaty days, or the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council thereafter, the leading barrister on the team was accustomed to present a red brief-bag to the junior counsel appearing with him - that is if the latter had not such already.
"Rill" Deverell had the honour of receiving the red bag. She appeared before the Judicial Committee in the Wigg and Cochrane appeal, on behalf of certain Irish Civil Servants seeking better terms in their pension rights under Article X of the Treaty of 1921. She was led by Mr. Alfred Pickie, K.C.
As the years passed, and such appeals no longer took place from Ireland to the Privy Council, the red bags became fewer and fewer. Eventually hers was the only one left, and it was the property of the lady called on that November day in 1921. In the legal fictional sense, the "Mother" left over 50 daughters.
J.R.C.
[John R. Cooke SC?]
Taken from
GENDER INJUSTICE
Feminising the Legal Professions?
Trinity College Law School, 2003
page 56
However, before any woman had become a solicitor in Ireland, or indeed a barrister in England, in a truly historic development, two women were called to the Irish Bar.
In spring 1920, the first women students, Frances Christian Kyle and Averil Deverell, had been admitted to the King's Inns. A resolution of the King's Inns Benchers of January 1920 had provided ‘that women shall be admitted on precisely the same terms as men.' Both women were called to the Bar on 1 November 1921, alongside 18 men. It was a particularly historic occasion; Frances Kyle was called to the Bar not only as the first woman barrister in Ireland, but also as the first to be awarded the John Brooke Scholarship, the top Irish students' law prize, having come first in the Bar examinations. It was also the first Call day of a divided Irish Bar, since the Government of Ireland Act 1920 had created separate jurisdictions for North and South. The call of the first two women barristers made headlines at the time; not just in the Dublin and Belfast papers, but also in the London Times, the New York Times, the suffragists' journal The Vote, and even The Times of India. Photographs of the two women were carried in many of these publications; the caption below the picture in the New York Times read:
‘First Irish Girl Barristers: Misses M. Kyle and A. K. S. Deverell. First colleens to be called to the Bar by the Lord Chief Justice, Their Dignified Wigs and Robes Sitting Lightly on Them.'
Born in 1894 and the daughter of a Belfast businessman Robert Kyle, Frances Kyle studied Law at Trinity College Dublin, where she completed a BA and LLB. After her Call, she only practised for a short while before returning to her family home in Belfast where she practised until 1944. She died in England in 1958.
AVERIL DEVERELL
Averil Deverell was the first woman actually to practise at the Bar in Ireland. Born in 1890, from Greystones, Co. Wicklow, her father was the local registrar of titles, and she had a twin brother, Captain William Deverell, who was called to the Bar on the same day as she was. She had had a colourful and interesting career prior to commencing legal studies, having been in the ambulance corps during World War I. As Cooke recalls, ‘she shortened her skirts by 12 inches and went off to join the ambulance corps in France'. She had learned to drive while in her teens, since her father was one of the first men in Wicklow to own and drive a motorcar. Feeling obliged to make some contribution to the war, she wrote with her father's permission to the headquarters of the Queen Alexandra First Aid Nurse Yeomanry offering to serve as an ambulance driver, but they required her to take a driving test at the Royal Automobile Club in London. She passed the test, but was then asked to re-assemble a dismantled engine, which she was unable to do; but six months later the requirement was abolished, and she was driving an ambulance for the rest of the war! On Averil Deverell's return from the war, she took up legal studies at Trinity College Dublin and subsequently the King's Inns, and after qualifying established a considerable Chancery practice, remaining actively in practice as a barrister until her retirement over forty years later. She developed a reputation while in practice of being a campaigner on behalf of her women colleagues; when the women's dressing room in the Law Library was changed in the 1930s, she organised the women to get their room back, and when the words ‘Lady Barristers' were written on the door of the room, she insisted on their replacement with the words ‘Women Barristers'. She lived in her parents' old house in Greystones until her death in 1979, and her portrait now hangs in the Law Library.
Her twin brother
William Berenger Deverell
Barrister-at-law
Birth.
Averil Katherine Statter Deverell, daughter of William Deverell and Ada Statter Deverell, formerly Carr, was born on 2 January 1893, at 26 Leeson Park, Dublin.
Her father was a Solicitor
for further details, see the bio of her father.
She lived at "Ellesmere", Greystones.
published in The Irish Times, March 1979.
AVERIL K.S. DEVERELL
an appreciation.
"The Father of the Bar" is the unofficial title given by his fellow barristers to the member of the law library in the Four Courts who has been longest in practice.
On All Saints Day 1921, lady barristers appeared for the first time. Chronologically Miss Frances Christian Kyle was the first "called to the Bar". In a crowded court she received the congratulations of Lord Chief Justice Molony with whom sat Lord Justice Ronan and Lord Justice O'Connor. Miss Kyle, however, never practised at the Irish Bar.
Following, by a few minutes, Miss Averil K.S. Deverell received her call, as did her twin brother Captain W.B.S. Deverell (later Brig.-General). They were respectively daughter and son of the Clerk of the Crown and Peace for Co. Wicklow.
Miss Deverell, who had been presented at Court and later had served with distinction in ambulance work during the first World War, now took her place among her newly found brethren in the Law Library where till the day of her much lamented death last month, she was known as "Mother of the Bar", an appellation she highly prized.
During the intervening years she appeared in many cases and gave numerous written opinions on tangled legal subjects, finding time nevertheless to exercise her interest in the canine world.
All practising barristers in the past, and many in later years, carried their briefs, papers and textbooks, in a black "brief bag", an amorphous sack-like object which tightened by the drawing of ropes around its otherwise open top.
When junior barristers appeared for the first time before the House of Lords, the highest Court of Appeal in pre-Treaty days, or the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council thereafter, the leading barrister on the team was accustomed to present a red brief-bag to the junior counsel appearing with him - that is if the latter had not such already.
"Rill" Deverell had the honour of receiving the red bag. She appeared before the Judicial Committee in the Wigg and Cochrane appeal, on behalf of certain Irish Civil Servants seeking better terms in their pension rights under Article X of the Treaty of 1921. She was led by Mr. Alfred Pickie, K.C.
As the years passed, and such appeals no longer took place from Ireland to the Privy Council, the red bags became fewer and fewer. Eventually hers was the only one left, and it was the property of the lady called on that November day in 1921. In the legal fictional sense, the "Mother" left over 50 daughters.
J.R.C.
[John R. Cooke SC?]
Taken from
GENDER INJUSTICE
Feminising the Legal Professions?
Trinity College Law School, 2003
page 56
However, before any woman had become a solicitor in Ireland, or indeed a barrister in England, in a truly historic development, two women were called to the Irish Bar.
In spring 1920, the first women students, Frances Christian Kyle and Averil Deverell, had been admitted to the King's Inns. A resolution of the King's Inns Benchers of January 1920 had provided ‘that women shall be admitted on precisely the same terms as men.' Both women were called to the Bar on 1 November 1921, alongside 18 men. It was a particularly historic occasion; Frances Kyle was called to the Bar not only as the first woman barrister in Ireland, but also as the first to be awarded the John Brooke Scholarship, the top Irish students' law prize, having come first in the Bar examinations. It was also the first Call day of a divided Irish Bar, since the Government of Ireland Act 1920 had created separate jurisdictions for North and South. The call of the first two women barristers made headlines at the time; not just in the Dublin and Belfast papers, but also in the London Times, the New York Times, the suffragists' journal The Vote, and even The Times of India. Photographs of the two women were carried in many of these publications; the caption below the picture in the New York Times read:
‘First Irish Girl Barristers: Misses M. Kyle and A. K. S. Deverell. First colleens to be called to the Bar by the Lord Chief Justice, Their Dignified Wigs and Robes Sitting Lightly on Them.'
Born in 1894 and the daughter of a Belfast businessman Robert Kyle, Frances Kyle studied Law at Trinity College Dublin, where she completed a BA and LLB. After her Call, she only practised for a short while before returning to her family home in Belfast where she practised until 1944. She died in England in 1958.
AVERIL DEVERELL
Averil Deverell was the first woman actually to practise at the Bar in Ireland. Born in 1890, from Greystones, Co. Wicklow, her father was the local registrar of titles, and she had a twin brother, Captain William Deverell, who was called to the Bar on the same day as she was. She had had a colourful and interesting career prior to commencing legal studies, having been in the ambulance corps during World War I. As Cooke recalls, ‘she shortened her skirts by 12 inches and went off to join the ambulance corps in France'. She had learned to drive while in her teens, since her father was one of the first men in Wicklow to own and drive a motorcar. Feeling obliged to make some contribution to the war, she wrote with her father's permission to the headquarters of the Queen Alexandra First Aid Nurse Yeomanry offering to serve as an ambulance driver, but they required her to take a driving test at the Royal Automobile Club in London. She passed the test, but was then asked to re-assemble a dismantled engine, which she was unable to do; but six months later the requirement was abolished, and she was driving an ambulance for the rest of the war! On Averil Deverell's return from the war, she took up legal studies at Trinity College Dublin and subsequently the King's Inns, and after qualifying established a considerable Chancery practice, remaining actively in practice as a barrister until her retirement over forty years later. She developed a reputation while in practice of being a campaigner on behalf of her women colleagues; when the women's dressing room in the Law Library was changed in the 1930s, she organised the women to get their room back, and when the words ‘Lady Barristers' were written on the door of the room, she insisted on their replacement with the words ‘Women Barristers'. She lived in her parents' old house in Greystones until her death in 1979, and her portrait now hangs in the Law Library.
Her twin brother
William Berenger Deverell
Averil Katherine Statter Deverell
Barrister-at-law
Birth.
Averil Katherine Statter Deverell, daughter of William Deverell and Ada Statter Deverell, formerly Carr, was born on 2 January 1893, at 26 Leeson Park, Dublin.
Her father was a Solicitor
for further details, see the bio of her father.
She lived at "Ellesmere", Greystones.
published in The Irish Times, March 1979.
AVERIL K.S. DEVERELL
an appreciation.
"The Father of the Bar" is the unofficial title given by his fellow barristers to the member of the law library in the Four Courts who has been longest in practice.
On All Saints Day 1921, lady barristers appeared for the first time. Chronologically Miss Frances Christian Kyle was the first "called to the Bar". In a crowded court she received the congratulations of Lord Chief Justice Molony with whom sat Lord Justice Ronan and Lord Justice O'Connor. Miss Kyle, however, never practised at the Irish Bar.
Following, by a few minutes, Miss Averil K.S. Deverell received her call, as did her twin brother Captain W.B.S. Deverell (later Brig.-General). They were respectively daughter and son of the Clerk of the Crown and Peace for Co. Wicklow.
Miss Deverell, who had been presented at Court and later had served with distinction in ambulance work during the first World War, now took her place among her newly found brethren in the Law Library where till the day of her much lamented death last month, she was known as "Mother of the Bar", an appellation she highly prized.
During the intervening years she appeared in many cases and gave numerous written opinions on tangled legal subjects, finding time nevertheless to exercise her interest in the canine world.
All practising barristers in the past, and many in later years, carried their briefs, papers and textbooks, in a black "brief bag", an amorphous sack-like object which tightened by the drawing of ropes around its otherwise open top.
When junior barristers appeared for the first time before the House of Lords, the highest Court of Appeal in pre-Treaty days, or the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council thereafter, the leading barrister on the team was accustomed to present a red brief-bag to the junior counsel appearing with him - that is if the latter had not such already.
"Rill" Deverell had the honour of receiving the red bag. She appeared before the Judicial Committee in the Wigg and Cochrane appeal, on behalf of certain Irish Civil Servants seeking better terms in their pension rights under Article X of the Treaty of 1921. She was led by Mr. Alfred Pickie, K.C.
As the years passed, and such appeals no longer took place from Ireland to the Privy Council, the red bags became fewer and fewer. Eventually hers was the only one left, and it was the property of the lady called on that November day in 1921. In the legal fictional sense, the "Mother" left over 50 daughters.
J.R.C.
[John R. Cooke SC?]
Taken from
GENDER INJUSTICE
Feminising the Legal Professions?
Trinity College Law School, 2003
page 56
However, before any woman had become a solicitor in Ireland, or indeed a barrister in England, in a truly historic development, two women were called to the Irish Bar.
In spring 1920, the first women students, Frances Christian Kyle and Averil Deverell, had been admitted to the King's Inns. A resolution of the King's Inns Benchers of January 1920 had provided ‘that women shall be admitted on precisely the same terms as men.' Both women were called to the Bar on 1 November 1921, alongside 18 men. It was a particularly historic occasion; Frances Kyle was called to the Bar not only as the first woman barrister in Ireland, but also as the first to be awarded the John Brooke Scholarship, the top Irish students' law prize, having come first in the Bar examinations. It was also the first Call day of a divided Irish Bar, since the Government of Ireland Act 1920 had created separate jurisdictions for North and South. The call of the first two women barristers made headlines at the time; not just in the Dublin and Belfast papers, but also in the London Times, the New York Times, the suffragists' journal The Vote, and even The Times of India. Photographs of the two women were carried in many of these publications; the caption below the picture in the New York Times read:
‘First Irish Girl Barristers: Misses M. Kyle and A. K. S. Deverell. First colleens to be called to the Bar by the Lord Chief Justice, Their Dignified Wigs and Robes Sitting Lightly on Them.'
Born in 1894 and the daughter of a Belfast businessman Robert Kyle, Frances Kyle studied Law at Trinity College Dublin, where she completed a BA and LLB. After her Call, she only practised for a short while before returning to her family home in Belfast where she practised until 1944. She died in England in 1958.
AVERIL DEVERELL
Averil Deverell was the first woman actually to practise at the Bar in Ireland. Born in 1890, from Greystones, Co. Wicklow, her father was the local registrar of titles, and she had a twin brother, Captain William Deverell, who was called to the Bar on the same day as she was. She had had a colourful and interesting career prior to commencing legal studies, having been in the ambulance corps during World War I. As Cooke recalls, ‘she shortened her skirts by 12 inches and went off to join the ambulance corps in France'. She had learned to drive while in her teens, since her father was one of the first men in Wicklow to own and drive a motorcar. Feeling obliged to make some contribution to the war, she wrote with her father's permission to the headquarters of the Queen Alexandra First Aid Nurse Yeomanry offering to serve as an ambulance driver, but they required her to take a driving test at the Royal Automobile Club in London. She passed the test, but was then asked to re-assemble a dismantled engine, which she was unable to do; but six months later the requirement was abolished, and she was driving an ambulance for the rest of the war! On Averil Deverell's return from the war, she took up legal studies at Trinity College Dublin and subsequently the King's Inns, and after qualifying established a considerable Chancery practice, remaining actively in practice as a barrister until her retirement over forty years later. She developed a reputation while in practice of being a campaigner on behalf of her women colleagues; when the women's dressing room in the Law Library was changed in the 1930s, she organised the women to get their room back, and when the words ‘Lady Barristers' were written on the door of the room, she insisted on their replacement with the words ‘Women Barristers'. She lived in her parents' old house in Greystones until her death in 1979, and her portrait now hangs in the Law Library.
Her twin brother
William Berenger Deverell
Barrister-at-law
Birth.
Averil Katherine Statter Deverell, daughter of William Deverell and Ada Statter Deverell, formerly Carr, was born on 2 January 1893, at 26 Leeson Park, Dublin.
Her father was a Solicitor
for further details, see the bio of her father.
She lived at "Ellesmere", Greystones.
published in The Irish Times, March 1979.
AVERIL K.S. DEVERELL
an appreciation.
"The Father of the Bar" is the unofficial title given by his fellow barristers to the member of the law library in the Four Courts who has been longest in practice.
On All Saints Day 1921, lady barristers appeared for the first time. Chronologically Miss Frances Christian Kyle was the first "called to the Bar". In a crowded court she received the congratulations of Lord Chief Justice Molony with whom sat Lord Justice Ronan and Lord Justice O'Connor. Miss Kyle, however, never practised at the Irish Bar.
Following, by a few minutes, Miss Averil K.S. Deverell received her call, as did her twin brother Captain W.B.S. Deverell (later Brig.-General). They were respectively daughter and son of the Clerk of the Crown and Peace for Co. Wicklow.
Miss Deverell, who had been presented at Court and later had served with distinction in ambulance work during the first World War, now took her place among her newly found brethren in the Law Library where till the day of her much lamented death last month, she was known as "Mother of the Bar", an appellation she highly prized.
During the intervening years she appeared in many cases and gave numerous written opinions on tangled legal subjects, finding time nevertheless to exercise her interest in the canine world.
All practising barristers in the past, and many in later years, carried their briefs, papers and textbooks, in a black "brief bag", an amorphous sack-like object which tightened by the drawing of ropes around its otherwise open top.
When junior barristers appeared for the first time before the House of Lords, the highest Court of Appeal in pre-Treaty days, or the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council thereafter, the leading barrister on the team was accustomed to present a red brief-bag to the junior counsel appearing with him - that is if the latter had not such already.
"Rill" Deverell had the honour of receiving the red bag. She appeared before the Judicial Committee in the Wigg and Cochrane appeal, on behalf of certain Irish Civil Servants seeking better terms in their pension rights under Article X of the Treaty of 1921. She was led by Mr. Alfred Pickie, K.C.
As the years passed, and such appeals no longer took place from Ireland to the Privy Council, the red bags became fewer and fewer. Eventually hers was the only one left, and it was the property of the lady called on that November day in 1921. In the legal fictional sense, the "Mother" left over 50 daughters.
J.R.C.
[John R. Cooke SC?]
Taken from
GENDER INJUSTICE
Feminising the Legal Professions?
Trinity College Law School, 2003
page 56
However, before any woman had become a solicitor in Ireland, or indeed a barrister in England, in a truly historic development, two women were called to the Irish Bar.
In spring 1920, the first women students, Frances Christian Kyle and Averil Deverell, had been admitted to the King's Inns. A resolution of the King's Inns Benchers of January 1920 had provided ‘that women shall be admitted on precisely the same terms as men.' Both women were called to the Bar on 1 November 1921, alongside 18 men. It was a particularly historic occasion; Frances Kyle was called to the Bar not only as the first woman barrister in Ireland, but also as the first to be awarded the John Brooke Scholarship, the top Irish students' law prize, having come first in the Bar examinations. It was also the first Call day of a divided Irish Bar, since the Government of Ireland Act 1920 had created separate jurisdictions for North and South. The call of the first two women barristers made headlines at the time; not just in the Dublin and Belfast papers, but also in the London Times, the New York Times, the suffragists' journal The Vote, and even The Times of India. Photographs of the two women were carried in many of these publications; the caption below the picture in the New York Times read:
‘First Irish Girl Barristers: Misses M. Kyle and A. K. S. Deverell. First colleens to be called to the Bar by the Lord Chief Justice, Their Dignified Wigs and Robes Sitting Lightly on Them.'
Born in 1894 and the daughter of a Belfast businessman Robert Kyle, Frances Kyle studied Law at Trinity College Dublin, where she completed a BA and LLB. After her Call, she only practised for a short while before returning to her family home in Belfast where she practised until 1944. She died in England in 1958.
AVERIL DEVERELL
Averil Deverell was the first woman actually to practise at the Bar in Ireland. Born in 1890, from Greystones, Co. Wicklow, her father was the local registrar of titles, and she had a twin brother, Captain William Deverell, who was called to the Bar on the same day as she was. She had had a colourful and interesting career prior to commencing legal studies, having been in the ambulance corps during World War I. As Cooke recalls, ‘she shortened her skirts by 12 inches and went off to join the ambulance corps in France'. She had learned to drive while in her teens, since her father was one of the first men in Wicklow to own and drive a motorcar. Feeling obliged to make some contribution to the war, she wrote with her father's permission to the headquarters of the Queen Alexandra First Aid Nurse Yeomanry offering to serve as an ambulance driver, but they required her to take a driving test at the Royal Automobile Club in London. She passed the test, but was then asked to re-assemble a dismantled engine, which she was unable to do; but six months later the requirement was abolished, and she was driving an ambulance for the rest of the war! On Averil Deverell's return from the war, she took up legal studies at Trinity College Dublin and subsequently the King's Inns, and after qualifying established a considerable Chancery practice, remaining actively in practice as a barrister until her retirement over forty years later. She developed a reputation while in practice of being a campaigner on behalf of her women colleagues; when the women's dressing room in the Law Library was changed in the 1930s, she organised the women to get their room back, and when the words ‘Lady Barristers' were written on the door of the room, she insisted on their replacement with the words ‘Women Barristers'. She lived in her parents' old house in Greystones until her death in 1979, and her portrait now hangs in the Law Library.
Her twin brother
William Berenger Deverell
Inscription
In
Ever Loving Memory
of
Brig.Gen W.B.S. DEVERELL
O.B.E., R.A.S.C., M.A., B.L.
born 2nd January 1893
died 28th February 1966
and his twin sister
AVERIL K.S. DEVERELL
Barrister at Law
died 17th February 1979
Family Members
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