THE ADVOCATE 291
VOL. 80 PART 2 MARCH 2022
LEGAL ANECDOTES
AND MISCELLANEA
By Ludmila B. Herbst, Q.C.*
A few months have now elapsed since the announcement of
Q.C. appointments in British Columbia. A few of you are still
likely walking on air, others are recovering from dashed hopes,
and the rest are wondering what the fuss was about.
We look back to the stories of two Black lawyers in Canada nominated for
the honour, both well over a century ago. One—Abraham Beverley Walker—
did not receive it despite several attempts.1 The other—Delos Rogest
Davis—did, becoming the first Black lawyer in the British Empire to do so.2
ABRAHAM BEVERLEY WALKER
Abraham Walker was the first Canadian-born Black lawyer.3
Walker was born in August 1851 in Kars Parish, New Brunswick. His
grandfather had settled on the Kingston Peninsula, in the southern part of
New Brunswick, in around 1786, apparently part of the northward exodus
of loyalists and former slaves who had sided with Britain during the American
War of Independence.4
The Walker family persevered in New Brunswick despite difficulties that
stemmed in part from the fact they were Black. Restrictions on land availability,
supports and status led nearly 1,200 members of the Black communities
in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to leave in 1792, destined for
Sierra Leone. However, the Walkers did not. Abraham Walker’s parents,
William Walker and Patience Taylor, farmed land near Saint John.
Abraham Walker learned shorthand early from an Anglican clergyman in
the area, the Reverend William Elias Scovil (author of A Short-Hand Legible
as the Plainest Writing and Requiring No Teachers but the Book: With A Simplified
System of Verbatim Reporting), and put this skill to good use. For several
* Ludmila B. Herbst, Q.C., is the assistant editor of the Advocate.