Emily Murphy

Emily Murphy (1868–1933) was a Canadian magistrate, author, and women’s-rights activist. She helped secure women’s recognition as persons eligible for appointment to the Senate.

Henrietta Muir Edwards: A Canadian women’s-rights activist and reformer who helped secure women’s legal recognition as persons. She joined Murphy and three other activists in the constitutional case that became the Persons Case.
Persons Case: The constitutional case that established women’s eligibility for appointment to the Canadian Senate. Murphy helped initiate the petition whose appeal produced the decisive ruling.
Women’s suffrage in Canada: The campaign to secure voting rights for women in Canada, achieved federally for most women in 1918 with important exclusions. Murphy’s Alberta activism developed alongside the wider struggle for women’s political rights.
Reference re meaning of the word “Persons” in section 24 of the British North America Act: The 1928 Supreme Court of Canada decision holding that women were not “qualified persons” eligible for Senate appointment. The Privy Council reversed this judgment after Murphy and her fellow petitioners appealed.
Nellie McClung: A Canadian author, politician, and women’s-rights activist who campaigned for suffrage and social reform. She worked with Murphy in Alberta’s women’s-rights movement and joined the Persons Case petition.
Edwards v Canada (Attorney General): The 1929 Judicial Committee of the Privy Council decision that women were qualified persons under Canada’s constitution. The ruling overturned the Supreme Court’s narrow interpretation of “qualified persons” in the Senate provisions.
Women’s Christian Temperance Union: An international women’s organization that campaigned against alcohol and advocated social and political reforms. Murphy’s reform work was connected to the organization’s Canadian temperance and women’s-rights campaigns.
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: A constitutional bill of rights enacted in 1982 that guarantees fundamental freedoms and equality rights in Canada. Its modern equality guarantees provide a broader framework than the Senate eligibility question Murphy pursued.
Louise McKinney: A Canadian politician and social reformer, and one of the first women elected to a legislature in the British Empire. She was one of the Alberta activists who petitioned for women’s constitutional recognition.
Famous Five: The name given to five Alberta women’s-rights activists who brought the Persons Case petition. Murphy was the group’s leading public figure and one of its five petitioners.

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