The only plaque outside the main entrance to PWW's offices is the sign below, hence it took me some time to find them.
Farewell to Alexa Beale
Gerald Kidd was kind enough to suggest that I say a few words at Alexa's retirement drinks party and with some intrepidation I agreed.
Gerald was keen that the talk was short but most know that lawyers rarely say in three words that which may be said in thirty.
A little history of the firm first which is necessary for the context of Alexa's retirement. WW was one of the first firms to act for many Catholic clients after the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1829. Witham Munster Roskell and Weld was an early name for the firm which when I joined as an articled clerk a few years back had become Witham Weld. WW then had a Liverpool office and its senior partner in London Michael Kelleher usually arrived at the office wearing a bowler hat - common enough in those years.
The House of Lords case of Gilmour and Coates was involving a Catholic Trust was possibly one of Witham Weld's most famous cases though the more recent PWW Supreme Court case in 2012 involving a Methodist minister and her claim to be unfairly dismissed, which the Methodist Church through the firm won, is better known. My reading of the Gilmour and Coates judgement led me to believe that maybe King Henry VIII had still wished to be Catholic upon his death.
Catholic discrimination was followed by racial discrimination. A sadly common unfairness which I learned quite quickly as a Witham Weld Articled Clerk was that of racial discrimination.
With me as an Articled Clerk was Ralph Doyle. Rumour had it that he had only been interviewed because of his English sounding names and the partners at the time were too embarrassed not to employ him thereafter. He was I was I believe was among if not the first non British subject Articled Clerks in the country. He came from Trinidad & Tobago. He taught me very quickly how unfair particularly then, life was for many immigrant families. Eg In those days we as Articled Clerks had to attend personally at Somerset House to arrange for stamp duty payments on conveyances and other deeds. On one occasion when going with him there, he greeted Caribbean postmen, who were complete strangers to him, with a waived fist type salute. I learned from Ralph probably more about the hurts of discrimination than from anyone else. Interestingly he went on to have a most successful legal career back home where he became Attorney General.
Such discrimination against racial minorities still exists but seems to be rather less severe in the UK than was the case in the 1960s.
In the legal profession discrimination against women was rife in the 1970s and 80s and many might say that there is still such discrimination today although my GP surgery used to be almost exclusively male; yet all or nearly all the GPs there today are female.. An advantage of historic sex discrimination for PWW, was that some brilliant women who all things being equal should have been recruited by the top City solicitors but covert discrimination meant that were available for recruitment by Witham Weld.
Witham Weld a small firm but was able some 40 plus years ago to recruit one or two trainees a year. One of two brilliant women articled clerks recruited after I had been made a partner was Catherine and the other Alexa. After qualification Catherine I recollect secured a post in private client work at Farrer & Co. She became a partner there and went on to become the solicitor to the late QE II. I met her again at Farrers when shortly before my own retirement I worked there for a couple of years as a consultant. She was very highly thought of. Like Alexa she has I believe, retired recently.
Alexa to the best of my recollection went to Oxford University whereas I think Catherine went to Cambridge. Reverting to the difficulties faced by women at the time my own degree compared unfavourably with theirs, being only an. external London University 2:2.
Alexa worked tirelessly and was an extremely good partner at the firm. On one occasion I recall being prepared to visit an order of nuns in the Cotswolds. They had had a difficult employment issue. At 3 am on the day I was due to travel to see them, my wife who was expecting a baby had to be rushed to hospital. I telephoned Alexa to ask if she could see the nuns in my place later that day; which she did by all accounts very successfully.
Unlike her former WW colleague Catherine, Alexa has a family and her children must be in their 20s or even 30s now. She owned and maybe still does, a holiday home near to I think, Reims Cathedral and was kind enough to allow my family and myself to holiday there one year. We drove over to France via the ferry and later arrived at Alexa's house which seemed to have ample space for us all. However shortly after we had put our four children to bed, there were screams of terror. Two of the children's rooms had been invaded by hordes of spiders The four children crowded into the remaining spiderless room and began to full the gaps between floor and doors with newspaper to keep the invaders at bay. We did laugh.
Alexa was always a reliable partner and had the characteristic of fairness which she combined with good grace, neither of which characteristics are as common today in either part of the legal profession as in my opinion they should be.
Have a great retirement Alexa.
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