Judges didn’t see what the fuss over Garrick Club was about – they do now

In 2011 Brenda Hale, at the time the only female judge in the supreme court, said it was ‘shocking’ that so many of her colleagues were members at the Garrick club. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

In October 2011, Brenda Hale, who was then the only female judge in the supreme court, gave a speech to a diversity forum, organised by the law firm Norton Rose, and expressed her dismay that so many of her colleagues were members of the men-only Garrick Club.

At that time the club’s members included the president of the supreme court, three supreme court justices who sat alongside Hale and an estimated 25% of the most senior male judges in England and Wales. “I regard it as quite shocking that so many of my colleagues belong to the Garrick Club, but they don’t see what all the fuss is about,” she said. Hale became the third person and first woman to serve as president of the supreme court.