 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Although ten member states signed the Statute creating the
Council of Europe in May of 1949, two more – Greece and Turkey – formally
became members on the eve of the Consultative Assembly’s first meeting.
Thus members from twelve parliaments were formally accredited, 101
representatives in total, with 53 substitutes who replaced them when they could
not attend.
A quarter of the deputies belonged to opposition parties in their home parliaments – ensuring that the Assembly represented, as it does to this day, all shades of political opinion across the continent.
In a sign of the times, the vast majority of them were men, thankfully no longer the case in the modern Assembly. Astonishingly only one woman, a Miss Herbison from the United Kingdom, attended the first sitting.
According to statistics gathered at the time, around a third of the members came from the legal profession, while a quarter were described as teachers. There were nine journalists, while only three were described as having a “manual profession”.
Among them were some of the great statesmen of Europe, whether revered leaders temporarily out of office such as Britain’s Sir Winston Churchill, or those who were to achieve later distinction in constructing Europe.
 |
 |
 |
|---|
