The list of ‘firsts' achieved by Rose Heilbron in her career makes
astounding reading and evidences a huge legacy to those women who followed her
in the male dominated legal profession. In 1949 she became not only one of the
first two women to be appointed King's Counsel but aged 34 was the youngest to
take silk since 1783. The first woman to be appointed judge in 1957 she also
became the first woman commissioner of assize and in January 1972 the first
woman to sit as a judge at the Old Bailey. Elected leader of the Northern
Circuit in 1973 she was the first woman to be leader of any circuit and in 1974
became the second woman High Court judge.
If
her list of ‘firsts' is impressive the catalogue of cases she handled as a
criminal lawyer reads like the product of an over-fertile crime-writer's
imagination. In 1949 she defended George Kelly, a defendant in the famous
Liverpool ‘Cameo murders' case. After two trials Kelly was found guilty and
executed notwithstanding the exceptional case presented on his behalf by
Heilbron. The fact that she should have attained a not guilty verdict was amply
illustrated in 2003 when the conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal.
Criminal cases were much more closely reported in the newspapers in the 1950s
and this contributed to the near celebrity status she acquired as one of the
most successful defence lawyers of her day. Other famous cases included the
defence of three Liverpool dockers accused of conspiracy to incite and illegal
strike, a case withdrawn by the Attorney General just before it was to be put
to the jury (1951).
Rose
Heilbron was born in 1914 at 26 St James Road, off Upper Parliament Street near
the Anglican Cathedral. Her father, Max Heilbron, was an emigration agent and
ran a boarding house for Jewish migrants, then later a hotel. The family moved
to 22 Menlove Gardens North in Allerton, naming the house ‘Anrose' after his
daughters. After attending Belvedere School Rose took her law degree at
Liverpool University. She married Nathanial Burstein, a general practitioner,
in 1945. They lived in her father's house until having a home built on Allerton
Road in 1959 which they called 'Parklands'. The Heilbrons moved to London when
he retired and she was appointed to the High Court bench. She died in Highgate
in 2005, her husband living on until shortly before his 105th birthday.
