The Industrial Courts Act 1919 established a permanent Industrial Court to provide voluntary arbitration in trade disputes. Section 1 provided that the Court should consist of independent persons, persons representing employers, persons representing workmen, and ‘in addition one or more women’. Thus, at a time when women were unable to formally practise law, before they were able to sit as magistrates let alone be paid judges in the civil and criminal courts, the Industrial Courts Act contained a statutory quota recognising women’s capacity as ‘persons of experience, of known impartiality; judicially-minded and capable of estimating evidence and reaching a reasonable decision according to the revealed facts of the case’.
The full version of this landmark is written by Erika Rackley.