A Yoruba of Sierra Leone Creole descent, Stella Jane Marke, (born Stella Jane Thomas), having received her law degree from the prestigious Oxford varsity, was the first black African woman called to the bar in Great Britain, the first lawyer in West Africa, obviously the first in Nigeria and the first West Africa’s female magistrate, serving Ikeja magistrate court with jurisdiction for Mushin, Agege and Ikorodu districts. She later served as a magistrate at the Saint Anna Court house and the Botanical Gardens Court in Ebute Metta.
She also served as a magistrate in Sierra Leone in 1971, where she eventually retired. Born in 1906, she was called to the English bar in 1933 and in 1934, she was the only African woman to participate in a discussion at the Royal Society of Arts, where she criticized Lord Lugard and African colonialism before an influential audience. Her sibling, Stephen Peter Thomas, was also the first Chief Justice of the Mid-West region. In November 1944, Stella Thomas married a fellow legal professional, Richard Bright Marke, in Freetown. She died in 1974, aged 68.
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