18 Facts About Rose Heilbron

Dame Rose Heilbron, DBE was a British barrister who served later as a High Court judge.

Rose Heilbron was the second woman to be appointed a High Court judge, after Elizabeth Lane.

Rose Heilbron attended The Belvedere School and Liverpool University, where she became one of the first two women to gain a first class honours degree in law, in 1935.

Rose Heilbron was awarded the Lord Justice Holker scholarship at Gray's Inn in 1936, and she became one of only two women to hold a master of laws degree in 1937.

Rose Heilbron was junior counsel for the West Indian cricketer Learie Constantine in his case in 1944, Constantine v Imperial Hotels, after he was turned away from a hotel due to his skin colour.

Rose Heilbron reportedly said that he was not "having a Judy defend [him]", but he later praised her for her painstaking defence, which led to her being named the Daily Mirrors "Woman of the Year".

Rose Heilbron was unable to save Kelly from the gallows, but the Court of Appeal quashed his conviction as unsafe in 2003.

Rose Heilbron led in several other important cases, included Ormrod v Crosville Motor Services on vicarious liability in 1953, and Sweet v Parsley on the presumption of a requirement for mens rea in criminal offences in 1970.

Rose Heilbron was appointed as Recorder for Burnley in November 1956, the first appointment of a woman as Recorder, although not the first time one had sat.

Elizabeth Lane was appointed the first female judge in the County Court in 1962 and of the High Court in 1965, but Rose Heilbron was appointed as the first female judge to sit at the Old Bailey on 4 January 1972.

Rose Heilbron became leader of the Northern Circuit in 1973, and then followed Lane as the second woman High Court judge in 1974.

Rose Heilbron took charge of many criminal cases while presiding judge of the Northern Circuit from 1979 to 1982.

Rose Heilbron became a bencher at Gray's Inn in 1968, and was the first woman to head one of the four Inns of Court when she became its treasurer in 1985.

Rose Heilbron's hobbies included golf and walking, and she was a keen member of Soroptimist International, the worldwide organisation for women in management and the professions, working to advance human rights and the status of women.

Rose Heilbron was an Honorary Colonel of the East Lancashire Battalion of the WRAC.

Rose Heilbron became a consultant at a Liverpool hospital, and there is little doubt that the availability of medical knowledge was a great help to her in some cases.

Rose Heilbron's daughter, Hilary, was born in January 1949; Hilary became a barrister and was in 1987 appointed a QC, the 29th woman so honoured.

Rose Heilbron died in a nursing home in Islington, of pneumonia and cerebrovascular ischaemia.