Who was the first female judge in England & Wales? What about Scotland and Northern Ireland?
You may have to be a bit more specific. What level in the judicial hierarchy? Are you including magistrates?
Sibyl Campbell was one. She held the office of Metropolitan Magistrate between 1945 and 1961.
Elizabeth Lane was appointed the first female judge in the County Court in 1962 and of the High Court in 1965.
Rose Heilbron was appointed as the first female judge to sit at the Old Bailey in 1972.
Brenda Hale is presently a justice of the Supreme Court of the UK, which was created in 2005, and replaces the House of Lords (and high courts in northern Ireland and Scotland) as the highest court in the land.
Emily Murphy was the first in the British Empire - she became a police magistrate in Alberta in 1916.
Only in Canada, eh? Pity.
Ms Murphy may have been the first woman in the colonies to wear a silly wig, but the England had first dibs in 1913 with another Emily - Emily Duncan - on the 26th of June to be exact.
What the…?! I was lied to by a Heritage Minute!