Edith Leavitt Hanington

In 1892 the precursor to UNB's Law School, King's College, was founded in Saint John. The next year, Edith Leavitt Hanington, the daughter of a prominent Shediac/Saint John lawyer named Augustus H. Hanington, enrolled at the school primarily to please her father. She is believed to be the first woman law student in the Maritime provinces, and only the second in Canada. Hanington's time at the Law school was not easy--her uncle, Judge Daniel Hanington, founder of the school and one of her professors, always greeted her in class with a kiss and made her feel conspicuous by using phrases such as: "I tell you, Gentlemen - Oh, I beg your pardon: 'Lady and Gentlemen.'" When her brother enrolled in the Law School in 1894, Hanington decided to retire from the field after completing one year.

Source(s):

• Yorke, Lois K. "Mabel Penery French (1881-1955): a life recreated." UNB Law Journal 42 (1993): 11.
• Bell, D.G. Legal education in New Brunswick: a history. Fredericton: Faculty of Law-UNB, 1992. p. 97.