Page 96 - GAHS Journal Volume 9

A QUIET WOMAN?

A Quiet Woman?

Liz Goldthorpe

Introduction

E
lizabeth Le Blond’s pioneering exploits give Greystones a
particular status in the current reassessment of women’s
contribution to history. But the town can claim another woman
‘first’, hidden in plain sight for the last 40 odd years.

Few may remember Averil Katherine Statter Deverell, who
lived for most of her life at Ellesmere, Church Road. She is buried
in Redford (The Grove) Cemetery, with her family and many of
her contemporaries; indeed the cemetery provides many clues
to the identity and history of the first woman to sustain a practice
at the Bar.

Strangely, given her status and achievements, her death in
1979 was not marked with any particular commemoration and
her gravestone, merely marked ‘barrister at law’, is an
understatement in itself. The only mark of her importance is a
rather unflattering portrait of her that hangs in the Law Library by
an unknown artist (anonymity rather sensible perhaps) and the
Averil Deverell Fellowship (which her bequest funded).

On 1 November 1921, before the Anglo-Irish Treaty was
signed, two Irish born women were called to the Dublin Bar, the
first, Frances ‘Fay’ Christian Kyle from Belfast, and Averil the
second. When talking about women’s legal milestones, few
English appear to grasp the relevance of this date, which is
before the first women were called in London in 1922. The Anglo-
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