The University’s Chancellor, The Rt Hon. The Baroness Hale of Richmond has been named in BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour top five of the UK’s 100 most powerful women.
The BBC judging panel, comprising journalist Eve Pollard, Conservative MP Priti Patel, Labour peer Oona King and crime novelist Val McDermid, assessed which women they believe have the greatest impact on British politics, society, culture and the economy. Baroness Hale, a supreme court judge, is ranked as number four in the list after HM the Queen, home secretary Theresa May and Santander boss Ana Botin.
In 2004, Brenda Hale became the first woman to sit on Britain’s Supreme Court and the first family lawyer to fill the post. She began her career teaching law at the University of Manchester, becoming Professor of Law in 1986. She was appointed to the Law Commission in 1984 and spent ten years re-defining the face of family law. She was made QC in 1989, and a High Court judge in 1994 and was officially installed as the University of Bristol’s seventh Chancellor on 12 March 2004.
- Five Bristol alumni are also named in the list, these are Professor Dame Carol Black (BA 1962, MB ChB 1970, MD 1975, Hon DSc 2003), Alison Cooper (BSc 1988), Clare Foges (MA 2003), Rachel Whetstone (BA 1989) and Jasmine Whitbread (BA 1986).