View from The Treasurer
The annual appointment of a Treasurer has been recorded in the Inn’s Acts of Parliament since 1505, and the office itself reaches back further still, to Thomas Welles, named as Treasurer in 1484. To be entrusted with it, more than five centuries later, has been a true privilege. That I do so as the first practising female barrister appointed to the role, and moreover do so alongside the first all female team of Principal Officers in any Inn, is a distinction I feel keenly – not as a personal achievement so much as a marker of how far the Inn, and the profession it serves, have travelled. I hope that such matters as now form firsts will soon seem unremarkable. Until that happens, I have been honoured to contribute to the journey.
I came to The Inner Temple in 1990 as a student and the recipient of a major scholarship, was called to the Bar the following year, and undertook my pupillage in Brick Court Chambers, where I have practised ever since. I mention this not by way of curriculum vitae but because it explains something of how I have approached the year. The Inn opened a door for me when I had neither the means, nor the connections, to open it for myself. Everything I have tried to do as Treasurer has been, in one way or another, an attempt to ensure that that door is kept open for those coming after.
“Through the Pegasus Access and Support Scheme and our scholarship programmes, the Inn has continued its work to widen access to the profession, so that talent, rather than background, decides who comes to the Bar.”
A Community, first
It is easy, in describing an institution of this age and grandeur, to reach first for its history and its estate. But the Inn is, before anything else, its people – the students attending their qualifying sessions and being called to the Bar, the pupils and new practitioners receiving world class advocacy training and finding their feet, the Benchers and all the other volunteers who give their time freely, and the staff whose care keeps the whole enterprise running with dedication and a quiet competence that is too rarely acknowledged. Much of the pleasure of the year to date has lain simply in being amongst them: at Call nights, at the advocacy training weekends, over tea in the Treasury Building, at lectures in our wonderful education centre, at events in the balmy summer evenings in our beautiful gardens and on the visits I have already been fortunate to make to many of the circuits, where the warmth and vitality of our members away from London is a genuine tonic.
Education at the heart of it
The Inn’s core purpose is education, and it remains the truest expression of what we are for. This year the advocacy training weekends, the qualifying sessions, the Reader’s Lecture Nights, our Social Context of the Law series and our Established Practitioners’ programme have again drawn our most experienced members and other distinguished speakers to teach and inform those who are more junior – the ancient collegiate idea that one generation owes something to the next, made practical. Through the Pegasus Access and Support Scheme and our scholarship programmes, the Inn has continued its work to widen access to the profession, so that talent, rather than background, decides who comes to the Bar.
There have already been so many highlights that it is impossible to do justice to them all. I have particularly enjoyed each of the four advocacy training weekends I have attended to date, where the quality of training I have witnessed has been universally outstanding. I have genuinely been left only wishing that similar programmes had been available when I started at the Bar – I am sure that would not only have given me more confidence as a young advocate, but also have helped me avoid at least some of the mistakes that I inevitably made. I am very grateful to all of the trainers at these weekends who on each occasion made me feel exceptionally welcome. We were also particularly fortunate that Master Victoria Sharp, the first female President of the King’s Bench Division who is shortly retiring from that role, delivered a fascinating and insightful lecture entitled Without Fear or Favour in the Inn. And, as a mother of two young adults, the two Reader’s lectures respectively on the adolescent brain and the age of criminal responsibility, included moments that particularly resonated.
Harman
At the start of the year, I made the Inn’s implementation of the recommendations of the Harman Report in relation to bullying, harassment and sexual harassment one of my priorities. It is incumbent on us all to take all steps we can to ensure that behaviour that has no place in the modern working world is no longer tolerated. I am therefore particularly pleased that the Inn has already decided to appoint its own Master of Conduct (together with an Assistant Master) and adopted its own Code of Conduct identifying the standards of conduct expected of us all. There inevitably remains further work to be done in implementing the report’s recommendations, but the universal support at all levels of the Inn’s management for the steps taken to date is encouraging. Many thanks are particularly due in this respect to Master Jeremy Richardson and the members of the Inn’s Harman Working Group.
The Garden and the Church
As members of Inner Temple, we are also custodians of an extraordinary place. The Garden has been a source of great pleasure – a green refuge in the heart of the City – and I record my thanks to those who tend it so beautifully.
2026 is of course also the year that the much-loved Master of the Temple, Master Robin Griffith-Jones retires. His last Evensong, with a packed church and the choir in absolutely magnificent voice, was the most wonderful of tributes to his incredible tenure. I am sure everyone in the Inn joins me in wishing him a happy and restful new chapter. I am very much looking forward to welcoming the new Master of the Temple, the Reverend Dr Andrew Bowyer to the Inn after the summer.
“His last Evensong, with a packed church and the choir in absolutely magnificent voice, was the most wonderful of tributes to his incredible tenure.”
Friendship among the Inns and beyond
The amity of the four Inns has been much in evidence this year, and I am grateful to my fellow Treasurers for their fellowship. At my initiative, the four Treasurers and the Sub/Under-Treasurers have held a number of breakfast meetings to discuss issues that are common to us all that came to focus in the context of the timing of Call debate of last year. Those meetings (which are ongoing) have proved a fruitful forum for constructive discussion as to ways in which the Inns might co-operate to advance matters in our collective interests, and I hope that they will continue to do so in the future.
In addition, I am delighted that in the autumn not one, but two, amity dinners will take place with other Inns. Firstly, a joint amity dinner on the Midlands Circuit with Middle Temple – which is a repeat of an event that has been held successfully in the past. And secondly, an amity dinner in London with Lincoln’s Inn, whose Treasurer is also the first female practising barrister to hold that office. And lest it be thought that Gray’s is in some way being left out, the Reader, Master Juliet May, is I know, planning an amity dinner with them in her year.
The Inn’s engagement overseas also continues. We held our first, extremely enjoyable, International Circuit dinner in the Hague in April and I must thank Master Jo Korner for all that she did to make that event such a success. I am also very much looking forward to visiting both Malaysia and India on behalf of the Inn in September. In Malaysia we will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Inn’s Malaysian Alumni Association, and in both I will be meeting with many of our overseas Benchers and members. The links with our colleagues in other jurisdictions continue to remind us that the values we hold, of the rule of law and an independent Bar, are neither parochial nor to be taken for granted.
Drama
Under the leadership of my predecessor, Master Richard Salter, 2025 was a year of music in the Inn. Given my love of the theatre, I have sought this year to introduce more of a theatrical theme, starting earlier this year with a special screening of Prima Facie to support the Schools Consent Project (schoolsconsentproject.com). Following on from that, I am delighted that the Inn will be hosting this autumn not one, but two, new theatrical productions, namely Paradise Lost in October and The Winding Stair, based on Jesse Norman’s renowned book of the same name, in November.
Thanks
No Treasurer governs alone, and the truth is that the Treasurer governs least of all. I owe an enormous debt to the Sub-Treasurer and to the whole of the Inn’s staff, whose dedication I have come to appreciate more with every month. I thank my fellow Principal Officers, Master Juliet May and Master Tracy Ayling, for their always incredibly wise counsel, and the Benchers and all our other volunteers, who give so generously of their expertise and support. And I thank my predecessor, Master Salter, for the state in which the Inn was handed to me: flourishing, forward-looking, and in good heart.
Looking forward
An institution of nearly seven hundred years does not depend on any one year, or any one Treasurer. My task has been to hold the office well for its brief tenancy and to pass it on undiminished. If I have managed, in some small way, to leave the door a little wider open than I found it, I shall be content.
My warmest good wishes to every member of The Inner Temple, and to all who work for it. I hope to see as many of you as possible in the Inn.
Helen Davies KC
Treasurer