Ethel Benjamin

[2] In 1892 Benjamin won a university scholarship,[2] and in 1893 she enrolled at the University of Otago for an LLB degree, not knowing if she would be able to practice law on completion: It is true that the Legal Profession was not then open to women, and that the franchise had not yet been granted, but I had faith that a colony so liberal as our own would not long tolerate such purely artificial barriers.

I therefore entered on my studies with a light heart, feeling sure that I should not long be debarred from the use of any degree I might obtain.Benjamin graduated in July 1897, having achieved outstanding marks in her course.

She is reported to have said: It was only yesterday that I was asked to undertake this pleasant task, and while deeply sensible to the compliment paid to me, I was somewhat diffident about taking so much upon myself at so short a notice.

The Law Society made things difficult for her by not inviting her to official functions such as their annual dinner, and tried to enforce a dress code on her.

She also represented several hotels and publicans' associations on matters related to prohibition - she was one of the few nineteenth-century New Zealand feminists who didn't support temperance.

[2] Ethel was accidentally struck by a motor vehicle, and died of a fractured skull at Mount Vernon Hospital in Northwood, Middlesex, England, on 14 October 1943.

[5] Ethel Benjamin Place, a cul-de-sac across the road from the University of Otago Central Library, was named after the lawyer, during Suffrage Centennial Year 1993.

Ethel Benjamin (centre front) at the opening of Dunedin Law Courts in 1902