Elizabeth Disher was one of the first hundred women to graduate in Law from the University of Glasgow. She was born in Glasgow on 7th November 1910 to Robert and Margaret (Easton). Her father was a commercial traveller. He died in 1929, shortly after Elizabeth matriculated in the Law Faculty. She began her studies uncertainly, switching from Law to Arts in 1929 and back to Law in 1930. Her exam history illustrates an anomaly about assessment standards in two of the subjects which could be studied in both Faculties. A Law student sitting the exam in Constitutional Law or Civil Law had to pass at a higher standard than an Arts student. It was a fate that befell Elizabeth in her journey between Faculties. After settling to a Law curriculum in 1930, however, she succeeded in upgrading her Arts passes in these subjects and over the next four years added passes in Jurisprudence, Mercantile Law, Law of Scotland, Public International, and Evidence and Procedure. She graduated B.L. in 1934. Though she would have served an apprenticeship in a law firm she did not go to meet the formalities and procedures to become a solicitor. Elizabeth married John Ferguson in 1949. For a time they lived in Falkirk. She died in Cirencester in 2000, aged 89.
Sources
University of Glasgow Registry & General Council Records
Scotlands People
Ancestry.co.uk
