How women marched in to the stock market bustle

If there were still men on the London Stock Exchange who objected to women being admitted to the respected 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 at the after-dinner speech celebrating the merger and the opening of the new headquarters.

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

Whether this new, larger institution would do the same was not yet confirmed. The Queen noted this and, straying from the subject, said, “I wonder whether the historians will find it more remarkable that this remarkable unity came about, or that you opened your doors to female members on that same day.”

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

On March 26, 1973, the town was a very different place, populated mostly by men in pinstripe suits with rolled umbrellas and bowler hats. Electronic calculators did not exist and transactions were conducted through cordial shouts on the open protest floor.

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

But even those who were thoroughly financiers had until then been kept from the top of the Square Mile by the male-only membership system.

While they can become a stockbroker and manage clients’ money, without being a member they cannot reach the top of the career ladder and become a partner in a brokerage.

The rules of the stock exchange, the beating heart of the City, did not explicitly exclude women. But in the past, every time someone signed up to join was voted down by existing members.

From March 26, 1973, those who passed the strict entrance tests could walk in 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, distracted men, or used female deceit to make better trades?

A tenacious aspiring floor member was Muriel Bailey, aka Muriel Wood, who pointed out that when the UK’s regional exchanges were merged there would be a two-tier system for women if the LSE didn’t admit them too.

In 1973, a total of 14 women were invited to join the 170-year-old gentlemen’s club, including Anthea Gaukroger, 81, and Hilary Pearson, 77, who remain close friends to this day. Gaukroger, who lives in Clapham, South West London, took the membership examinations in 1972 ‘although at the time I had no prospect of joining.

“My colleagues at work thought it would be a useful experience and improve my professional standing,” she says, adding that she then “standardly” succeeded in admitting women in 1973, as she was already qualified.

But her experience was far from the misogynistic picture many of the era paint. She says, “There was a very conservative view at the time that finance and investment were a man’s business. The idea of ​​women even wanting to join was foreign to many, but once it happened, as with so many things, the unthinkable became normal. There was no animosity—just mild surprise that any woman would want to join.”

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

Bustle: In 1973 the city was a very different place, populated mostly by men in pinstripe suits with rolled umbrellas and bowler hats

Pearson, who also worked at Sheppards, had always been a go-getter and secured her first job in finance by responding to an ad on the front of The Times looking for male applicants – though they hired her anyway.

Being a member, she points out, didn’t make “the slightest difference” to what they did on a daily basis.

Gaukroger retired in late 2000 after working as an analyst for decades. Her career spanned a series of stock market ups and downs, as well as the heyday of deregulation in the 1980s known as the “Big Bang.” It was at this time that individual membership in the LSE was scrapped altogether.

The old system had empowered women — though many are still competing long overdue — to enter the elite, male-dominated financial elite.

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

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

Progress has been made, but there is still a way to go.

We continue the work of these city pioneers

Julia Hoggett, CEO of the London Stock Exchange

Incredible feeling: Julia Hoggett

It is an incredible feeling to celebrate the 50th anniversary of women’s admission to the stock market.

The city has undergone paradigm shifts since 1973 and the financial services industry is more diverse than ever.

But it still irks me to this day that the LSE was not actually required to accept the positive cause for women to join, but was given little choice when it merged with 11 others who had already invited them.

As Managing Director of the London Stock Exchange, I am fully aware of the need to continue the work begun by the pioneering women we honor today to improve women’s participation and suffrage in the financial services industry – both as people who work in industry as , just as important, as people who receive financial services.

As I said before, we really stand on the shoulders of giants and we have an obligation to pass the baton to the next generation.

While the stories of misogyny and childishness have diminished, they haven’t completely disappeared. We also still have a serious shortage of female role models in the industry. The latest data from the [Treasury-backed] The Women in Finance Charter showed that the average representation of women in senior management was only 35 percent. While this has improved in recent years, more needs to be done; we cannot be complacent.

I have to admit that I hate making the ‘business case’ for diversity and inclusion. I think we are at the stage where the discussion should no longer be about why it is important to have an adequate representation of more than 50 percent of the city’s population. We should instead focus on what we actually need to change to make a difference for women.

However, if I had to make a business case, I would make one simple point: Diversity and inclusion is about giving everyone in the workplace an equal opportunity to thrive.

Setting up an industry to allow only a certain portion of that industry to flourish is, simply put, nonsense resource management.

Together with the Center for Economics and Business Research, we conducted a study that showed that gross value added has almost tripled [the value that producers have added to goods and services] to the UK economy by women in finance over the past 26 years.

This has contributed to a £1.12 trillion ‘gender diversity dividend’ to the UK economy since 1997 – through the incredible work of innovative, dynamic and committed women in the UK finance industry.

Interestingly, the growth is explained by an increase in women’s ability to participate and, as a result, their wages and productivity – leading to higher added value per worker.

This should give food for thought to any politician working to solve the UK’s productivity puzzle.

But it also illustrates how much value we lost by not including women earlier.