Famous Five was a group of Canadian feminists of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The group consisted of Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, Emily Murphy, and Irene Parlby. The five reformers met in the province of Alberta, where they campaigned for various social causes. Such causes included temperance (limiting alcohol consumption), dower rights (widows’ rights to some of their husbands’ property), suffrage (the right to vote), and the creation of special law courts for women. The group became famous as a result of the Persons Case, a groundbreaking legal case of the late 1920’s.
The Persons Case began in 1927. That year, the five women petitioned the government of Canada to direct a question to the Supreme Court of Canada. The question concerned whether it was constitutional to appoint women to the Canadian Senate. The government then asked the Supreme Court to examine the meaning of the word persons in the British North America Act. The act, passed in 1867, was Canada’s basic governing document. On April 24, 1928, the Supreme Court ruled that the word persons referred only to men. Therefore, women could not serve in Canada’s Senate, the upper house of the Canadian legislature.
The women next appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, which at that time served as the highest court of appeal for Canada. On Oct. 18, 1929, the committee ruled that the word persons included both males and females. In February 1930, Canadian Prime Minister W. L. Mackenzie King appointed Cairine Wilson as the country’s first woman senator.
The Persons Case made the five reformers national heroines. They became known as the Alberta Five, and later as the Famous Five. In 1938, Canada’s government put up a plaque honoring the Famous Five in the lobby of the national Senate chamber in Ottawa. In 1999, a monument featuring the women was installed in Olympic Park in Calgary. A replica of the monument stands on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
See also Edwards, Henrietta Muir ; McClung, Nellie ; Murphy, Emily Gowan .
