Margaret Booth (judge)

Dame Margaret Myfanwy Wood Booth, DBE (11 September 1933 – 1 January 2021) was a British judge.

Education and career

Her father was told by a cousin in the early 1950s, "Don’t put your daughter in to law; there is no place for women in the law” but the family ignored this and Margaret Booth was called to the Bar in 1956 after studying law at University College London, having won a scholarship from Middle Temple. In 1976 she took silk, becoming only the tenth woman appointed a Queen’s Counsel.[1]

In January 1979, she became the third woman to be appointed as a High Court judge. Like her predecessors, Elizabeth Lane and Rose Heilbron, she was assigned to the Family Division.[2] In 1980, she chaired a committee that unanimously called for no-fault divorce, yet the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill only reached the House of Lords in the days following her death.

She retired from judicial office in 1994.

She was awarded an honorary LLD by the University of Liverpool in 1992, and served as the Vice-President of its Council from 1996 to 1999. She became a fellow of University College, London in 1992. She was president of the National Family and Parenting Institute in which role she was deeply critical of the way in which family courts fell short of the mark, considering Britain to be decades behind other countries.[3]

From 2004 she was President of the Family and Parenting Institute, having been Chairman from 1999–2004.[4]

Dame Margaret Booth died on 1 January 2021.[5]

Personal life

Booth married twice, her second husband Peter Gluksman, died in 2002. Booth was diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease later in life.[1]

References
  1. Baksi, Catherine. "'You just put your head down and got on with it'". ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 2021-01-10.
  2. "The Red Robes | First 100 Years". first100years.org.uk. Retrieved 2021-01-10.
  3. Freely, Maureen (2002-06-03). "Divorce: the new hope for children". the Guardian. Retrieved 2021-01-10.
  4. "Booth, Dame Margaret (Myfanwy Wood), (born 11 Sept. 1933), President, Family and Parenting Institute, since 2004 (Chairman, 1999–2004); a Judge of the High Court, Family Division, 1979–94". WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u8108. Retrieved 2021-01-10.
  5. Booth
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