When she was appointed the new Recorder of Burnley in 1957 and thus became Britain’s ﬁrst female judge, a crowd of “housewives and schoolgirls” waited for two hours to see her installed (“the most exciting quarter sessions Burnley has ever known,” said The Daily Herald). The public thrilled to her successes – over and over again she saved defendants from the gallows, and in cases that seemed impossible to win – but they also loved her humble roots (in Liverpool, her father had struggled to keep his small hotel aﬂoat); the touch of Scouse at the edges of her melliﬂous voice; and the fact that she was, away from the courtroom, a devoted wife and mother who did her own shopping.