Jean Wishart was one of the first 100 women to graduate in Law from the University of Glasgow. She was born in Irvine on the 20th June 1906 at Fullarton United Free Manse where her father, James, was the minister. She was a very good student and it was clear from her curriculum choices that she intended to integrate Arts with Law. When she graduated M.A. in 1927 she had already passed Constitutional Law, in which she gained a first class certificate, as well as a pass in Political Economy which served towards both degrees. She continued to earn several distinction and merit certificates in Civil Law, Jurisprudence, Forensic Medicine and Evidence and Procedure before graduating LL.B. in April 1930. She does not seem to have completed her professional qualification by petitioning the Court of Session for admission as a law agent. In January 1936, when she was 29, she married John Kenneth Cameron Armour in the manse where she was born. At that time her occupation was described as ‘secretarial assistant’, though this does not convey what may have been a role carrying professional responsibilities if not status. He was a schoolmaster from Ballymoney where his father had been a minister. The couple lived in Northern Ireland where the records of the General Council list a Belfast address in 1940. Jean died in 1970, John in Ballymoney in 1976.
Sources
University of Glasgow Registry & General Council Records
Scotlands People
Ancestry.co.uk
