Emily Ferguson Murphy was born in Cookstown, Ontario in 1868 and educated at Bishop Strachan School, Toronto. She married Rev. Arthur Murphy in 1887. In 1916 she was appointed by the Alberta Government as the first woman Magistrate in the British Empire. It was she who inaugurated and brought to a successful issue the movement that resulted in the Privy Council, in 1929, declaring that women were "persons" under the British North America Act, and therefore had a right to be appointed to the Senate of Canada. She was the first President of the Federated Women's Institute of Canada. Prime mover in the establishment of the Victorian Order of Nurses in Edmonton 1910, she was the first woman member of the hospital board in the City of Edmonton. In 1911 she organized the Women's Canadian Club in Edmonton and was elected as their first President. Under the pen name "Janey Canuck" she was well known as a writer. In 1913 she was elected National President of the Canadian Women's Press Club. In 1915 she was decorated by His Majesty the King as Lady of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.