How women marched into the stock market turmoil

If men on the London Stock Exchange were still objecting to the inclusion of women in the prestigious institution when it merged with eleven regional competitors in November 1972, the late Queen Elizabeth II soon relegated them to their place. Her Majesty went off the runway when she delivered the after-dinner address at the celebration of the merger and the opening of their new headquarters.

These regional bodies were smaller but ahead of the capital in a crucial way – in that several were already accepting women as members.

Whether this new, larger institution would also do so was not yet confirmed. Noting this, the Queen said, digressing: “I cannot help but wonder whether historians will find it more remarkable that this remarkable unity was achieved than that you opened your doors to female members on the same day .”

This cleverly timed intervention gave financiers a much-needed boost of recognition and four months later – 50 years ago today – six women entered Europe’s busiest trading pit for the first time.

On March 26, 1973, the city was a different place, populated mostly by men in pinstriped suits with rolled-up umbrellas and bowler hats. Electronic calculators did not exist and trading was done by hearty shouting on the open shouting floor.

Women were also there – but mostly as secretaries or typists.

But even those who were financiers through and through had been kept out of the upper echelons of the Square Mile by the male-only membership system up to that point.

Although they could become stockbrokers and manage client funds, without membership they could not reach the top of the corporate ladder and become a partner in a brokerage firm.

The rules of the stock exchange, the beating heart of the city, did not specifically exclude women. But in the past, every time you applied for membership, existing members turned it down.

Beginning March 26, 1973, those who passed the rigorous entrance tests could enter with their heads held high.

Culturally, however, many men were not yet ready for equality on the trading floor. What if female members wore short skirts, males were distracted, or used female cunning to execute better trades?

A tenacious rising floor member was Muriel Bailey, aka Muriel Wood, who pointed out that if the UK regional bourses were to merge, there would be a two-tier system for women unless the LSE also absorbed them.

In 1973, a total of 14 women were invited to the 170-year-old gentleman’s club, including Anthea Gaukroger, 81, and Hilary Pearson, 77, who remain firm friends to this day. Gaukroger, who lives in Clapham, south-west London, passed the membership exams in 1972 ‘although at that time I had no prospect of becoming a member.

“My work colleagues thought it would be a useful experience and would improve my professional standing,” she says, adding that she “defaulted” to admitting women in 1973 because she was already qualified.

But her experience was a far cry from the misogynistic picture that many painted at the time. She says: “There was a very conservative view at the time that finance and investing was a male domain. The idea of ​​women even wanting to join was alien to many, but once it happened, like so many things, the unimaginable became normal. There was no animosity – just mild astonishment that every woman wanted to join.’

Always interested in finance, she worked at Sheppards and Chase when she was accepted as an LSE member.

Pearson, who also worked at Sheppard’s, had always been a go-getter and landed her first job in finance by responding to a front-page ad in The Times looking for male applicants — though they hired them anyway.

Being a member, she points out, made “not the slightest difference” to what they did on a daily basis.

Gaukroger retired in late 2000 after spending decades as an analyst — with a career that has spanned a series of stock market ups and downs as well as the heyday of deregulation in the 1980s known as the “Big Bang.” At that time, individual membership in the LSE was abolished entirely.

The old system had allowed women to enter the elite, male-dominated elite of the financial world, although many are now saying this too late.

Decades later, membership may not be required to get to the top, but women are still grossly underrepresented and earn less than their male counterparts.

They also face more hurdles than men at various points in their careers – although changes to maternity policy announced in the recent budget could make it easier for working women to continue working once they have children.

Progress has been made – but much remains to be done.