Elish Angiolini

Dame Elish Frances Angiolini, DBE, QC, FRSA (née McPhilomy; born 24 June 1960) is a Scottish lawyer. She was the Lord Advocate of Scotland from 2006 until 2011, having previously been Solicitor General since 2001. She was the first woman, the first Procurator Fiscal, and the first solicitor to hold either post. Since September 2012, Angiolini is the Principal of St. Hugh's College, Oxford.

Early life and education

Angiolini grew up in Govan, Glasgow in a working-class family; her father was a coal merchant and later worked for Rolls-Royce and as a commercial driver. As a child she wanted to be a ballet dancer. One of her first jobs was working on a checkout at Marks & Spencer. She was educated at Notre Dame High School for Girls in the West End of the city, and studied at the School of Law of the University of Strathclyde, obtaining an LLB in 1982 and a Diploma in Legal Practice in 1983.

Angiolini's neighbourhood suffered from high crime rates. In the summer of 1976, when Angiolini was 16, she returned home to find her mother attaching shards of broken glass to the garden fence to deter intruders. The family home had already been broken into over six times that year.