Iris de Freitas Brazao

Iris de Freitas Brazao (1896 – 1989) was the first female Barrister-at-Law (Lawyer) in the Commonwealth Caribbean.

Life
Iris de Freitas Brazao was born in Barbados and spent the majority of her life in Guyana (then British Guiana). Her father was M. G. de Freitas, a merchant. After a short period studying at University of Toronto in Canada, she enrolled at Aberystwyth University giving her address as Demerara, British Guiana (now Guyana). She studied botany, Latin and modern languages, law and jurisprudence and took an active part in student life. She graduated with a BA in 1922, and received her LL.B in 1927.

Iris went on to study at the University of Oxford from 1923 and the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple in England.

In 1929 she was admitted to the Bar as the first woman Barrister-at-Law in the Commonwealth Caribbean. She was also the first female prosecutor of a murder trial there.

In 1937 she married Alfred Brazao who was also a Barrister-a-Law. They lived at Georgetown in British Guiana where she continued to work as a Barrister-at-Law.

Iris passed away in 1989 in Georgetown, Guyana. In 2021, the Caribbean Court of Justice honoured Iris as one of the Pioneering Caribbean Women Jurists and in 2023, Dr. Joanne Collins-Gonsalves published the first full length book on her titled: Iris de Freitas Brazao, Legal Luminary and Trailblazer: Caribbean, Canada, Wales, England 1896-1989.

Legacy
In 2016, staff at her alma mater came across a postcard that featured her. Investigations revealed that she was a graduate of Aberystwyth University. In 2016 on International Women's Day her university named a room in the university's Hugh Owen Library in her honour.

In 2018, to celebrate Black History Month in the United Kingdom, she was included in a list of 100 "Brilliant, Black and Welsh" people.