On 27 April 1920, Georgina Frost won her case in the House of Lords allowing her to be the first female Clerk of the Petty Sessions in the UK

103 years ago today, 27 April 1920, Georgina Frost ("Georgie") won a legal battle in the House of Lords allowing her to be Clerk of the Petty Sessions for Sixmilebridge & Newmarket-on-Fergus, Co Clare, Ireland, becoming the first woman to hold public office in the then UK.

Under the Petty Sessions Clerk (Ireland) Act 1881 the appointment needed approval from the Lord Lieutenant, who rejected her appointment by the local magistrates telling them to appoint someone else. Her father Thomas Frost had been the Petty Sessions Clerk of Sixmilebridge and Newmarket-on-Fergus and before him Georgie’s grandfather John Kett had also acted as Petty Sessions Clerk, so the job was something of a family tradition. Between 1909 and 1915, Georgie helped her father in his duties and sometimes performed them herself, becoming well-known in the area during this process. When Thomas Frost retired, the local magistrates had no problem electing her to succeed her father.

Undeterred by the lack of approval from the Lord Lieutenant, the local magistrates granted Georgie a temporary year-long contract, in order to give her time to fight her case. However, she was again rejected by the Lord Lieutenant.

Georgie brought the case to the Chancery Division in Dublin under the ‘petition of right’ procedure and Justice Dunbar Barton in the Chancery Court in Dublin, dismissed her claim, telling Tim Healy KC & James Comyn KC, women were not disqualified by ability, but due to concerns around "decorum" & "painful and exacting" duties.

He commented: "The reason of the modern decisions disqualifying women from public offices has not been inferiority of intellect or discretion, which few people would now have the hardihood to allege. It has been rather rested upon considerations of decorum, and upon the unfitness of certain painful and exacting duties in relation to the finer qualities of women".

Mr Justice Dunbar Barton dismissed her claim saying that it was a matter for parliament, referring to the Statutes governing the Office of Clerk of Petty Sessions, and arguing that there had never been a woman Clerk of Petty Sessions.

The Court of Appeal, in November 1917, before Lord Shandon, Lord Chief Justice Molony and Lord Justice Stephen Ronan agreed with Justice Dunbar Barton following a hearing in 1917. By the time judgement was actually delivered in December 1918, Lord Shandon had resigned, although he left a letter instructing that the appeal should be granted because no statues or principles of common law disallowed a woman being appointed. Despite this, the other judges upheld the decision that "Georgie" was excluded from public office, arguing that it was a rule of common law women could not be appointed to public office.

She then brought the case to the House of Lords because there had been a dissent in the Irish court of appeal doing so in forma pauperis (a Latin legal term meaning "in the character or manner of a pauper"). This meant that if she was unsuccessful she would not be required to pay the costs.

The House of Lords hearing was on 27 April 1920. The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 was then law, removing any legal bar. She was appointed, making her the first woman to hold public office in Great Britain or Ireland.

Her appointment was short-lived. In 1923, the Irish Free State abolished her job. Those 3 years during the Irish Civil War, saw Frost held at gunpoint by the IRA, the Newmarket-on-Fergus petty sessions court house destroyed, and a raid on the local RIC barracks.

Frost died, aged 60, on 6 December 1939 in at her home, Garna House, in Sixmilebridge in Ireland.

See https://www.maths.tcd.ie/~pwaldron/frost.pdf for further information on the position of petty sessions clerk.