The Women in the Law in Queensland Exhibition

In September 1939, Mary Eugenie (Molly) Whitehouse became the sixth woman to be admitted as a solicitor in Queensland. Following the commencement of her articles with Kevin O’Sullivan in Warwick, Mary continued on to complete her clerkship under Paul Neville, whose practice she upheld during his war training absence. Despite being unable to join the armed forces during the war period, Mary took a position filing soldiers’ wills with the army records department, after which she was transferred to the Commonwealth Crown Solicitor’s office in Brisbane. It was here, in 1941, that Mary met Una Bick (later Prentice), the first woman to graduate with a law degree in Queensland. Following her marriage to Eric Whitehouse three years later, Mary joined her husband in purchasing the practice of Pender and Pender, which was owned by the remaining partner, Clare Foley (nee Pender), the fourth woman to be admitted as a solicitor in Queensland. Mary abstained from taking an active part in the practice until her youngest child commenced school, after which time she continued her practice of law in Brisbane.