Women’s Legal Landmarks in the Interwar Years: Not for the Want of Trying

Legal History › Law

Women’s Legal Landmarks in the Interwar Years: Not for the Want of Trying

Edited by Rosemary Auchmuty · Erika Rackley · Mari Takayanagi
Hart Publishing February 2026

Specifications

ISBN-13
9781509969760
Publisher
Hart Publishing
Publication
February 2026
Format
Paperback
Jurisdiction
U.K. ? Countri(es) for reference only

Also available as

Hardback

Details

This book focuses on the often forgotten legal landmarks that benefited, or aimed to benefit, women in England and Wales between 1918 and 1938.

Bringing together 30 academics and scholars, the book considers the work done by feminist activists in the interwar years, to provoke legal reforms and advances impacting every area of life. These included property, family relationships, access to health care, criminal law, employment opportunities, pay, pensions and political representation.

The book follows campaigns by key women's organisations, including the Six-Point Group and the Married Women's Association, while assessing the impact of early women lawyers and politicians. While some of the landmarks effected change during this period, others provided the foundation for measures in later decades. Together the landmarks demonstrate that far from being a relatively quiet period of British feminism, the interwar period played a key role in ongoing fights for recognition, representation and justice.

Table of Contents

1. Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918, Mari Takayanagi (Parliamentary Archives, UK)
2. Constance Markiewicz (1918), Aoife O'Donoghue (Queens University, Belfast, UK)
3. Foundation of the International Federation of University Women (1918), Liz Goldthorpe (Ireland)
4. Nancy Astor (1919), Jacqui Turner (University of Reading, UK)
5. Report of the War Cabinet Committee on Women in Industry (1919), Anne Morris (University of Liverpool, UK)
6. Industrial Courts Act 1919, Erika Rackley (University of Kent, UK)
7. Ivy Williams (1920), Caroline Morris (Queen Mary University of London, UK)
8. Formation of the Six-Point Group (1921), Rosemary Auchmuty (University of Reading, UK)
9. Lady Rhondda's Petition for Women to Sit in House of Lords (1922), Mari Takayanagi (Parliamentary Archives, UK)
10. Monica Geikie Cobb (1922), Caroline Derry (The Open University, UK)
11. Criminal Law Amendment Act 1922, Caroline Derry (The Open University, UK)
12. Intoxicating Liquors Act 1923, Mari Takayanagi (Parliamentary Archives, UK)
13. Law Society Installs a Women's Cloakroom (1923), Eduardo Reyes (Law Society Gazette, UK)
14. Agnes Twiston Hughes (1923), Carol Howells (The Open University, UK)
15. Maud Crofts, Women Under English Law (1925): First Text on Women by a Woman Lawyer, Rosemary Auchmuty (University of Reading, UK)
16. Guardianship of Infants Act 1925, Brenda Hale (Member of the House of Lords, UK)
17. Widows', Orphans and Old Age Contributory Pension Act, 1925, Teresa Sutton (University of Sussex, UK)
18. Administration of Estates Act 1925, Equalised inheritance Rights for Men and Women on Intestacy, Rosemary Auchmuty (University of Reading, UK)
19. Short v Poole Corporation (1926), Harriet Samuels (University of Westminster, UK)
20. Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928: Ensured Equal Suffrage Between Men and Women by Allowing for all Women Over 21 to Vote, Regardless of Property Ownership, Mari Takayanagi (Parliamentary Archives, UK)
21. Age of Marriage Act 1929, Laura Lammasniemi (University of Warwick, UK) and Kanika Sharma (SOAS, University of London, UK))
22. Ministry of Health Memorandum 153/MCW (1930), Joanne Beswick (Staffordshire University, UK)
23. Stella Thomas (1933), Judith Bourne (St Mary's University, Twickenham, UK)
24. AP Herbert, Holy Deadlock (1934), Penny Russell (University of Sheffield, UK)
25. Married Women and Joint Tortfeasors Act 1935, Penny Russell (University of Sheffield, UK)
26. Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (1938), Madeleine Davies (University of Reading, UK)
27. R v Bourne (1938), Lesley Hall, (Archivist and Historian, UK)
28. Inheritance (Family Provision) Act 1938, Richard Hedlund (University of Lincoln UK)
29. Formation of the Married Women's Association (1938), Sharon Thompson, (Cardiff University, UK)
30. Infanticide Act 1938, Kelly-Ann Couzens, (University of Warwick, UK)
31. Bradford Third Equitable Benefit Building Society v Borders (1939), Rosemary Auchmuty (University of Reading, UK)
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