Mary Elaine Sykes (24 August 1896 – 25 February 1981) was a British solicitor, politician and magistrate.
[1][2] She read English at Royal Holloway College (1914–1917)[3] and law at the University of Leeds (1918–1919).
[5] Having been articled to her father, a partner in his own firm of solicitors in Huddersfield (Armitage, Sykes and Hinchcliffe), in November 1922, along with Mary Pickup, Carrie Morrison, and Maud Crofts, she was one of the first women to sit the Law Society’s Final Examination, the first time the examination was opened to women following the passing of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919.
[6] Morrison was the first of them to finish her articles, and was the first woman admitted to the role of solicitor.
[6] Sykes was elected president of the Huddersfield Law Society in 1951 and in 1955 was appointed as a magistrate.