Memorable Manitobans: Isabel Ross MacLean Hunt (1894-1990)

Lawyer.

Born at Deloraine, Manitoba on 2 November 1894, one of ten children born to grain merchant John R. MacLean and Alexina Isabel Campbell, she grew up in Winnipeg, graduated in law from the University of Manitoba, and was called to the Manitoba Bar in 1916. She practised law at Grandview, married Albert James Hunt on 25 December 1919, and resumed her practice at Winnipeg in 1923 when her husband died.

For many years she worked in the legal department of the City of Winnipeg, and she was made a Queen’s Counsel in 1953, the first woman in the province so honoured. She was a founding member of the Portia Club and the Winnipeg Soroptimist Club, and a member of First Presbyterian Church and the University Women’s Club. In 1983, she received the Governor General’s Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case.

She died at Toronto, Ontario on 1 January 1990.

Sister of George C. MacLean and D. R. C. MacLean, and mother of John M. Hunt.

Sources:

Birth and marriage registrations, Manitoba Vital Statistics.

“City woman first QC in Manitoba”, Winnipeg Free Press, 1 January 1953.

Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 4 January 1990, page .

Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by J. M. Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.

We thank Lee Gibson for providing additional information used in this profile.

This profile was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Profile revised: 31 August 2011

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