Alice Jamieson

Alice Jamieson (July 14, 1860 – July 4, 1949) was an American and Canadian feminist and magistrate.[1]

Alice Jamieson
Personal details
Born(1860-07-14)July 14, 1860
New York City, New York
DiedJuly 4, 1949(1949-07-04) (aged 88)
Calgary, Alberta
SpouseReuben Rupert Jamieson

Career

Jamieson arrived in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in 1903 when her husband, Reuben Rupert Jamieson, became the area general superintendent for the Canadian Pacific Railway. They prospered in Calgary and after his retirement, he became the 19th mayor of Calgary.

After the death of her husband, Alice continued to be active in the community. She was involved in organizations such as the Calgary Council of Women and the YWCA of Calgary.

In 1914, Jamieson was appointed the first female judge in the British Empire of a juvenile court. In 1916, she became the second female magistrate of the Empire, just months after Emily Murphy was appointed in Edmonton, Alberta.

Jamieson's right to serve as magistrate came into question in 1917 in the Lizzie Cyr Case.[2][3][4] Cyr's lawyer argued that as a woman, Alice was legally "incompetent and incapable" of holding the office. The Alberta Supreme Court upheld her right to serve in this position. This was a precursor to the 1929 Persons Case where five other Albertan women fought to answer the question, "Are women persons?" Jamieson retired in 1932.

When the Calgary Board of Education opened its only all-female school in 2003, it honored her by naming it the Alice Jamieson Girls' Academy.

Bentall Capital LP and British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (bcIMC) broke ground in February 2007 on a new office tower called Jamieson Place in honour of Alice Jukes Jamieson. The tower opened in 2009.

Alice Jukes Jamieson had 4 children. One of her great-granddaughters is Adrienne McLennan who followed in Jamieson's footsteps, becoming the then highest-ranking woman and the highest ranking civilian to serve on any police force in Canada until her retirement in 1996. McLennan was the Director of Public Affairs for the Metro Toronto Police.

Alice Jamieson, along with her husband, were Christian Scientists, and long-time members of First Church of Christ, Scientist, Calgary.

References
  1. Sanderson, Kay (1999). 200 Remarkable Alberta Women. Calgary: Famous Five Foundation. p. 14. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
  2. Sarah Burton (March 8, 2017). "The Person Behind the Persons Case". Canada History. Retrieved February 27, 2020. In 1929, the British Privy Council ruled that Canadian women were persons under the law. What sparked this victory for women's rights was the trial of a forgotten Calgary prostitute twelve years earlier.
  3. Laurel Dietz (February 20, 2015). "Reasonable Doubt: Prostitution at the heart of women's rights in Canada". Georgia Straight. Retrieved February 27, 2020. The Alberta Supreme Court upheld Jamieson's right to occupy her position as magistrate and her conviction of Lizzie Cyr stood. This in turn provided the platform from which Emily Murphy and her colleagues, collectively known as the Famous Five, to challenge the British North America Act, which stated that women were not persons.
  4. Naomi Sayers (October 19, 2018). "The Stories Of Women That White Feminism Forgot". Huffington Post. Retrieved February 27, 2020. The irony in this challenge is the fact that an Indigenous woman was enough of a person to be arrested, charged and convicted by the same state that did not see women, in general, as persons. And, even more to the point, it was Lizzie Cyr's story that ignited the fight for white women's right to vote in Canada.
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