Eliza Orme

Eliza Orme (25 December 1848 – 22 June 1937) was the first woman to earn a law degree in England, from University College London in 1888.

Early life Orme was born near Regent's Park in London, into a well-connected middle-class family. She was the seventh of eight children of Charles Orme (c.1806–1893) and Eliza (née Andrews) (1816–1892), daughter of Reverend Edward Andrews. Charles Orme was a distiller and Eliza Orme hosted a salon that was frequented by members of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. Orme's sister Emily Rosaline Orme would go on to become a noted campaigner for women's suffrage in Scotland.

Her parents often hosted academics and artists such as Thomas Carlyle and John Stuart Mill, and were supportive of women's education. Orme attended the Bedford College for Women and, in 1869, was one of nine women to write the University of London’s first General Examination for Women. After University College London allowed both men and women to attend lectures, she became a student there in 1872. Her teachers included John Elliot Cairnes (1823–1875), W. Leonard Courtney (1850–1928), and W. A. Hunter (1844–1898). In 1903 Orme was interviewed by the Law Journal, and recounted ‘I “devilled” for about a dozen conveyancing counsel who kept me busily employed on drafts they wanted done in a hurry, and for twenty-five years I found it both an interesting and profitable employment’.

Politics Orme was influenced by J. S. Mill, W. A. Hunter, John Elliott Cairnes and Leonard Courtney, all supporters of laissez-faire and Benthamite reform.

Personal life She lived for most of her life with her parents in London until their deaths in the 1890s, and then with her sister Beatrice at Tulse Hill. She died in Streatham from heart failure. Her colleague Reina Lawrence was the executor and residuary beneficiary of Orme's will when she died in 1937. They may have had an intimate relationship, referred to as a “Boston marriage”.

Orme was known to correspond with other female lawyers in the United States, as part of the Equity Club.