Mabel French

She was born in Portland Parish, New Brunswick, the daughter of Henry Steeves French, a city constable; and Ruth Penery.{{cite journal|last=Yorke|first= Lois K. |title=Mabel Penery French (1881-1955): a life recreated.|journal=UNB Law Journal|volume= 42|year= 1993|url=https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/unblj/article/view/29671}}

French graduated from King's College Law School, (then located in Saint John, New Brunswick), with a Bachelor of Civil Law degree in 1905, becoming the first woman in New Brunswick to receive that degree. When she sought entrance to the New Brunswick bar, she was refused, as legally she was not a person and therefore, not entitled to practise law.{{cite news |author=Bird |first=Lauren |date=Apr 17, 2019 |title=New Brunswick women bore jeers and insults to get the vote 100 years ago today {{!}} CBC News |url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/100th-anniversary-womens-suffrage-1.5097773 |work=CBC}} William Henry Tuck was opposed to her admission.{{cite web |last1=Bell |first1=D. G. |title=Biography – TUCK, WILLIAM HENRY – Volume XIV (1911-1920) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/tuck_william_henry_14E.html |website=Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol, 14 |publisher=}} To protest this decision, she stopped paying her bills. Upon being sued for debt, her defence was that since she was not a person, she could not be sued, nor did she have to pay. Her defence failed, although she was ruled as a person and British subject.

In 1907,Jakobsen, P. (2014) [https://prism.ucalgary.ca/server/api/core/bitstreams/c83282f9-afdf-4348-b693-eb6e9f5c7eb0/content Bench-Breakers? Women Judges in Prairie Canada 1916-1980]. PhD Thesis. University of Calgary. doi:10.11575/PRISM/25108. due to pressure from women,{{Cite book |last1=Fineman |first1=Martha |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bcQfLoyUtpsC&dq=mabel+french+lawyer&pg=PA299 |title=At the Boundaries of Law: Feminism and Legal Theory. Volume 1 |last2=Thomadsen |first2=Nancy Sweet |date=2012 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-63502-8 |pages=299 |language=en}} including a campaign by the Canadian University Women's Club,{{Cite book |last=Converse |first=Cathy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u52kjmxFNF4C&dq=mabel+french+lawyer&pg=PA21 |title=Mainstays: Women who Shaped BC |date=1998 |publisher=TouchWood Editions |isbn=978-0-920663-62-2 |pages=21–22 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Stewart |first=Lee |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cSdmvNWe4Z4C&dq=mabel+french+lawyer&pg=PA23 |title=It's Up to You: Women at UBC in the Early Years |date=2011-11-01 |publisher=University of British Columbia Press |isbn=978-0-7748-4301-0 |pages=23 |language=en}} the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick passed "An Act to Remove the Disability of Women so far as Relates to the Study and Practice of the Law".{{Cite book |last=Kinnear |first=Mary |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oYLDE72wNVMC&dq=mabel+french+lawyer&pg=PA78 |title=In Subordination: Professional Women, 1870-1970 |date=1995 |publisher=McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP |isbn=978-0-7735-1278-8 |pages=79 |language=en}} French was then admitted to the New Brunswick bar on April 1.{{Cite book |last=Dodd |first=Dianne |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gx3dDwAAQBAJ&dq=mabel+french+lawyer&pg=PT35 |title=Our 100 Years: The Canadian Federation of University Women |date=2020-04-21 |publisher=Second Story Press |isbn=978-1-77260-128-2 |language=en}}

French practised law in Saint John as partner in the firm Bustin & French, alongside Stephen Bustin,{{Cite book |last=Mossman |first=Mary Jane |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-67bBAAAQBAJ&dq=william+henry+tuck+canada&pg=PA101 |title=The First Women Lawyers: A Comparative Study of Gender, Law and the Legal Professions |date=2006-05-31 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-84731-095-8 |pages=101 |language=en}} often arguing in her cases that as women were not persons under the law, they could not be convicted under that law. She also presented a paper to the ICW regarding child custody and the law{{Cite book |last=Schandevyl |first=Eva |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=trSXCwAAQBAJ&dq=mabel+french+lawyer&pg=PA237 |title=Women in Law and Lawmaking in Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century Europe |date=2016-02-17 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-77506-4 |pages=237 |language=en}} and assisted in drafting the 1909 women's suffrage bill.{{Cite book |last=MacDonald |first=Heidi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8oC_EAAAQBAJ&dq=mabel+french+lawyer&pg=PA90 |title=We Shall Persist: Women and the Vote in the Atlantic Provinces |date=2023-04-15 |publisher=University of British Columbia Press |isbn=978-0-7748-6320-9 |pages=90–91 |language=en}}

She moved to Vancouver, British Columbia in 1910. The Law Society of British Columbia at that time excluded women, but she won the right to enter after applying to the Supreme Court of British Columbia for a writ of mandamus, in 1912 to compel the society to accept her application. When it was refused, she appealed. Although Chief Justice James Alexander MacDonald was sympathetic, he ruled that British Columbia should follow the custom of England, which at the time{{efn|Women were not allowed to practise law in England until 1921.}} did not allow women to practise.{{cite web |last1=Knafla |first1=Louis A. |title=Biography – MACDONALD (McDonald), JAMES ALEXANDER – Volume XVI (1931-1940) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/macdonald_james_alexander_16E.html |website=www.biographi.ca |publisher=Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 16}} A similarly named act was passed by the Conservative government{{cite web |title=Table of Repealed, Replaced and Renamed Public Statutes -- "L" |url=https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/tos/tos/1118555223 |website=www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca}} a short time later, just before the 1912 election.

After the act was passed, French left the firm Russell, Russell & Hannington and set up a single practice in Vancouver in 1913. The next year, she emigrated from Canada and moved to Britain, along with one of the partners in her former firm.{{cite book|author=Osgoode Society|title=Essays in the History of Canadian Law|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2qPdFgo4p88C&pg=PA509|date=1 January 1995|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-0-8020-7151-4|page=509}}

In 1923, she married Hugh Travis Clay, a worsted manufacturer. They moved to live in St. Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands. She died there on 13 January 1955, at home.

• Frances Fish - first woman to be called to the bar of Nova Scotia

{{Reflist}}

{{notelist}}

• [https://unbhistory.lib.unb.ca/index.php/Mabel_French Mabel French] at University New Brunswick Archives & Special Collections, 2014
• {{cite book|author=Bell, D.G.|title= Legal education in New Brunswick: a history|location= Fredericton|publisher= Faculty of Law-UNB |date=1992| pages= 97–100}}
• Mary Jane Mossman, [https://canlii.ca/t/2b17 "Invisible" Constraints on Lawyering and Leadership: The Case of Women Lawyers], 1988 20-2 Ottawa Law Review 567, 1988 CanLIIDocs 10, retrieved on 2021-03-29
• {{cite news |title=Miss French's Case To Supreme Court |url=https://da.tj.news/viewer?opub=Daily_Telegraph&date=19051108&page=1&search=Mabel%20French&filename=0646_DT_A11344 |work=The Daily Telegraph (St. John) |date=Nov 8, 1905 |page=1|url-access=subscription}}
• {{cite news |title=Application of Miss Mabel French Dismissed |url=https://da.tj.news/viewer?opub=The_Daily_Gleaner&date=19060106&page=2&search=Mabel%20French&filename=0633_DG_A7218 |work=The Daily Gleaner |date=Jan 6, 1906|page=2|url-access=subscription}}
• {{cite news |title=Legislature To Aid Miss French |url=https://da.tj.news/viewer?opub=Daily_Telegraph&date=19060209&page=1&search=Mabel%20French&filename=0350_DT_A11345 |work=Daily Telegraph |date=Feb 9, 1906|page=1|url-access=subscription}}
• {{cite news |title=Miss French Sworn In |url=https://da.tj.news/viewer?opub=The_Daily_Gleaner&date=19060421&page=5&search=Mabel%20French&filename=0080_DG_A7219 |work=The Daily Gleaner |date=Apr 21, 1906 |page=5|url-access=subscription}}
• {{cite court |litigants=In Re Mabel Penery French |vol=17 |reporter=BCR |opinion= |pinpoint=1 |court=BCSC |date=20 September 1911 |url= |access-date= |quote= |postscript=, }} widely reported, also as, {{report|19|WLR|847}}, {{report|1|WWR|488}} and {{report|1|DLR|80}}
• {{cite court |litigants= In re French| date=1905|vol= 37 |reporter= N.B.R.|pinpoint= 359|court=S.C.}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:French, Mabel}}

Category:1881 births

Category:1955 deaths

Category:Canadian women lawyers

Category:Lawyers in New Brunswick

Category:Lawyers in British Columbia

Category:People from Saint John County, New Brunswick

Category:20th-century Canadian women lawyers

Category:Canadian suffragists

Category:Immigrants to Jersey

Category:University of New Brunswick Faculty of Law alumni