How women marched in to the stock market bustle

If any men at the London Stock Exchange still objected to women being admitted to the revered institution when it merged with 11 regional competitors in November 1972, the late Queen Elizabeth II soon put them in their place. Her Majesty went off-piste when delivering the after-dinner speech at the celebration of the merger and the opening of its new headquarters.

These regional bodies were smaller but, in one crucial way, strides ahead of the capital – in that several already admitted women as members.

Whether this new, larger institution would too had not yet been confirmed. The Queen noted this and, straying off topic, said: ‘I cannot help wondering whether the historians will think it more notable that this remarkable unity was accomplished, or that on that very same day you opened your doors to lady members.’

This cannily timed intervention gave female financiers a much-needed boost in recognition and four months later – 50 years ago today – six women strode on to Europe’s busiest trading pit for the very first time.

On March 26, 1973, the City was a very different place, populated mainly by men in pinstripe suits with furled umbrellas and bowler hats. Electronic calculators did not exist and trades were conducted through hearty shouts on the open outcry floor.

Women were there too – though mostly as secretaries or typists.

But even those who were through-and-through financiers had until that point been kept out of the Square Mile’s upper echelons by the men-only membership system.

Although they could become stockbrokers and manage clients’ money, without being members they could not reach the top of the career ladder and become a partner at a brokerage.

The rules of the stock exchange, the beating heart of the City, did not explicitly bar women. But in the past, each time one applied to become a member they had been voted down by existing members.

From March 26, 1973, those who passed the rigorous entrance tests could walk in with heads held high.

Culturally, though, many men were still not ready for equality on the trading floor. What if female members wore short skirts, distracted men or used feminine guile to execute better trades?

One tenacious aspiring floor member was Muriel Bailey, also known as Muriel Wood, who pointed out that when the UK’s regional exchanges merged there would be a two-tier system for women if the LSE did not admit them too.

In 1973, a total of 14 women were invited to join the 170-year-old gentlemen’s club, among them Anthea Gaukroger, 81, and Hilary Pearson, 77, who remain firm friends to this day. Gaukroger, who lives in Clapham, South West London, took the membership exams in 1972 ‘even though I had no prospect of becoming a member at that stage.

‘My colleagues at work thought it would be useful experience and improve my professional standing,’ she says, adding that she then managed to get in ‘by default’ in 1973 when women were admitted, as she was already qualified.

But her experience was far from the misogynistic picture many paint of that time. She says: ‘There was a very conservative view in those days that finance and investment were a male domain. The idea of women even wanting to be members was strange to many, but once it had happened, as is the case with so many things, what had been inconceivable became a normal thing. There was no hostility – just mild amazement that any woman would want to become a member.’

She had always been interested in finance and was working at Sheppards and Chase when she was admitted as an LSE member.

Pearson, who also worked at Sheppards, had always been a go-getter, securing her first job in finance by answering an advert on the front of The Times seeking male applicants – though they hired her anyway.

Being a member, she insists, didn’t make the ‘slightest bit of difference’ to what they did day to day.

Gaukroger retired at the end of 2000 after spending decades as an analyst – with her career spanning an array of the stock market’s peaks and troughs, as well as the 1980s deregulation heyday, known as the ‘Big Bang’. It was at this time that individual membership of the LSE was scrapped altogether.

The old system had allowed women – though many still contend far too late – to enter the elite, male-dominated top tier of finance.

Decades later, membership may no longer be required to reach the top, but women are still vastly under-represented and paid less than their male counterparts.

They also face more hurdles at different points in their career than men – though changes to maternity policies announced in the recent Budget may make it easier for professional women to keep working once they have children.

Progress has been made – but there is still further to go.