This captivating biography delves into the extraordinary life of Iris de Freitas Brazao, the first woman Barrister-at-Law in the Commonwealth Caribbean. She was called to the Bar in 1929 at The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. She was also a graduate of the University of Oxford and the Aberystwyth University.
The academic year 2023–2024 marks one hundred years since Iris de Freitas Brazao began her studies at the University of Oxford in England, a significant and noteworthy milestone to be commemorated!
This book covers ninety-three (93) years of Iris’s legal career, lineage and studies. In Canada, she studied at the University of Toronto in 1918, while in Wales at the Aberystwyth University from 1919, and in England at the University of Oxford from 1923, where she was taught by Dr. Ivy Williams, the first woman to be called to the Bar in England. Her academic journey ended successfully in 1929, with her having traversed the hallowed halls of The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple and being called to the Bar there in January 1929.
For this extensive study, Dr. Joanne Collins-Gonsalves has been conducting research for more than a decade. Among Iris’s notable achievements is the distinction of being the first woman in British Guiana (Guyana) to prosecute a murder trial in 1932 - sixteen (16) years before Helena Normanton led the prosecution of the first murder trial by a woman Barrister-at-Law in England in 1948. This book also addresses Canadian Universities in the 1910s and 1920s; England and the Education of Women; Education and Legal Studies in Guyana; Iris’s Caribbean Call to Bar; her legal career and the public opposition she faced. Iris de Freitas Brazao was a legal luminary who shattered the glass ceiling in the legal profession in the Caribbean, a significant achievement for a woman, and particularly for a woman of colour in the 1920s.
This publication on Iris includes a Foreword by the Chief Justice of Guyana (Ag.), the Hon. Madam Justice Roxane George SC, CCH and an Introduction by Professor Bridget Brereton, Professor Emerita of History, University of West Indies.
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