First Female Judge at Old Bailey

Date: January 4, 1972 • Location: Barbican, United Kingdom

Rose Heilbron (pictured) became the first female judge to sit at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales.

Dame Rose Heilbron, DBE was a British barrister who served later as a High Court judge. Her career included many "firsts" for a woman – she was the first woman to achieve a first class honours degree in law at the University of Liverpool, the first woman to win a scholarship to Gray's Inn, one of the first two women to be appointed King's Counsel in England, the first woman to lead in a murder case, the first woman recorder, the first woman judge to sit at the Old Bailey, and the first woman treasurer of Gray's Inn. She was also the second woman to be appointed a High Court judge, after Elizabeth Lane.