[3][4] The three other women were Maud Crofts, Karin Costelloe, who became a psychoanalyst after marrying Adrian Stephen (brother of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell), and Lucy Nettlefold.
She was represented by Stanley Buckmaster KC and R. A. Wright, instructed by Withers, Bensons, Birkett & Davies when her test case was heard in the Chancery Division on 2 and 3 July 1913, before Mr Justice Joyce, seeking a declaration that she was a "person" within the meaning of the Solicitors Act 1843 as amended, and was therefore entitled to be admitted to the preliminary examination of the Law Society.
[1] In the meantime, Bebb married a solicitor, Thomas Weldon Thomson, at St Mary Abbots church in Kensington, London, in April 1917.
In August 1917, Bebb now Mrs Thomson was appointed assistant commissioner for enforcement for the Ministry of Food in its Midland Division, with work that included prosecuting black-marketeers.
Bebb attended a banquet at the House of Commons on 8 March 1920 to celebrate the passing of the Act, where she proposed a toast.
In August 1920, she gave up her work at the Ministry of Food in order to study for the bar examinations, and help her husband in his legal practice in Tewkesbury.
Nettlefold left law, but went on to become the Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Ministry of Food, the highest Civil Service role held by a woman to that date.
[13] Law Society president in 2019, Christina Blacklaws said: “The legal profession owes an enormous debt of gratitude to Gwyneth Bebb and her fellow aspiring female lawyers.”[9]