"Call-night" at the Inner Temple is always a memorable occasion for those concerned in its ceremonial, but last night's ritual possessed a wider and unprecedented significance in our legal history: for the senior student "called" by that Honourable Society was a woman, Dr. Ivy Williams of Oxford, the first woman to be admitted to the English Bar.
The unique event had attracted a larger attendance than usual at dinner in hall. The Masters of the Bench, presided over by the Treasurer, Mr. H. F. Dickens, K.C., the Common Serjeant, sat in state at the high table on the dais.
During an interval after the meal the 23 candidates for "call" (of whom three were Indians) exchanged their students' gowns for the white "bibs" and robes of full-fledged advocates, assembled in procession, and, headed by Miss Williams, the only woman-student, filed through the door behind the dais to meet, in the privacy of the Parliament-chamber beyond, the conclave of Benchers for the solemn initiation. Mr. Dickens, in his address last night, doubtless included remarks appropriate to the historic occasion, thereby affording opportunity to the woman "Senior" to emphasize in her reply her sense of its unique distinction. At the conclusion of the ceremony the new barristers re-entered the hall to receive the felicitations of their brother and sister students, of which there were none warmer than those proffered to Miss Ivy Williams, now "of Counsel," first woman-barrister at the Bar of England.
