In October 2021, Normanton was honoured by the installation of an English Heritage blue plaque at her London home in Mecklenburgh Square.

Her mother, who may already have been separated from her father, a stigmatised position in those days,[2] brought up Helena and her younger sister Ethel alone[3] – letting rooms in the family home in Woolwich to wives of officers, before moving to Brighton to run a grocery and later a boarding house.

Following her mother's death, she became responsible for supporting her sister and helped to run the family's boarding-house before attending a teachers' training college at Edge Hill, Liverpool where she studied between 1903 and 1905.

[7] Normanton recognised this situation as a form of sex discrimination and wished to help all women gain access to the law, which at the time was a profession only open to men.

[2] In the book, Normanton reflects: "I still do not like to see women getting the worst end of any deal for lack of a little elementary legal knowledge which is the most common form amongst men".

She reapplied on 24 December 1919, within hours of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 coming into force, and was admitted to the Middle Temple.

[10] Ten years after the passing of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919, Normanton spoke at the Women's Engineering Society's seventh Annual Conference in July 1929, alongside Professor Winifred Cullis, the first woman to hold a professorial chair at a medical school, and architect Edna Mosley.

[18] In 2020 barrister Karlia Lykourgou set up the first legal outfitter dedicated to offering courtwear for women, as much of the existing provision was impractical and uncomfortable.

[19] In April 2021 English Heritage announced that Normanton was one of six women whom they were honouring with a Blue plaque, marking where she lived from 1919 to 1931 during the early part of her legal career.

The plaque was unveiled by Brenda Hale, the first female head of the Supreme Court on the wall of 22 Mecklenburgh Square in October 2021.