It was the year that the Sex Pistols topped the album charts, the Queen celebrated her silver jubilee and Star Wars was screened for the first time. But for the Law Society, 1977 was memorable for the remarkably belated first election of a woman to its council. Eirian Evans represented Chester and North Wales, where she had been president of the local law society (another female first) since 1973.

Evans was born into a Welsh-speaking home in Flintshire and after studying law at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, she joined North Wales firm J.R. Williams where she remained all her working life. We’re sad to report that she has died at the ripe age of 104. When she stood down in 1982, the Gazette reported that ‘Miss CE Evans’ had ‘brought good common sense, and to those of the professional and public relations committee, a feminine viewpoint which was particularly useful in the work of the subcommittee on sexual and racial discrimination’.

If any readers have further memories of this pivotal figure of the first 100 years of women in law, please get in touch.

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