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The Women's Police Service (WPS) in the UK was a national voluntary organization of women police officers that was active from 1914 until 1940. As the first uniformed women's police service in the UK, it made progress in gaining acceptance of women's role in police work.
Before the First World War, campaigners for women's rights had proposed that there should be female, as well as male, police officers. In 1883 the Metropolitan Police had employed one woman to visit female prisoners under supervision, and by 1889, there were 16 women employed to supervise female and child offenders in police stations (a job formerly done by officers’ wives). [1]
Several women’s movements campaigned for more representation in this area; [1] however the outbreak of war prevented any progress. [2] In 1914, Nina Boyle and Margaret Damer Dawson met when Damer Dawson was working for the Criminal Law Amendment Committee in 1914. [3] Both Boyle and Damer Dawson had observed the trouble faced in London by Belgian and French refugees, particularly the danger of their being recruited for prostitution on arrival at railway stations. [2] [3] They were also concerned about existing prostitutes loitering near railway stations used by the increasing number of servicemen passing through the capital.
Boyle and Damer Dawson sought and gained the approval of Sir Edward Henry, Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis to form the Women Police Volunteers (WPV) which would train women to patrol London on a voluntary basis. The volunteers would offer advice and support to women and children to help prevent sexual harassment and abuse. [2] [4] Boyle led the organisation with Dawson as assistant. [5] The volunteer women were allowed to officially patrol the streets of London and to assist women in need, with men of the Metropolitan Police and other forces asked to assist them. They had no weapons and no power to arrest anyone. [6] Boyle herself was one of the first women to appear in a police uniform. [7]
Boyle's background was in the Women's Freedom League (WFL) and so for her the WPV was an opportunity for women to assist in catching criminals and to challenge male control of law enforcement, particularly in relation to sexual issues, ie, as an instrument to help and support women rather than to control their activities. However, Damer Dawson, who had previously campaigned against animal vivisection, was more concerned with policing public morality, particularly that of working-class women. The government agreed and from its foundation onwards the WPV's role was delimited to enforcing the public decency laws and supervising female workers such as munitionettes. [5] While this side of their work was generally approved, Boyle was to become alarmed that her organisation and other similar initiatives were being used to support anti-female propaganda and to curtail women's civil liberties. [8] She also deplored the adoption of Regulation 40D, an anti-prostitution amendment to the Defence of the Realm Act, that in many people's view revived some of the objectionable features of the nineteenth-century Contagious Diseases Acts. [9] She described Regulation 40D, which punished women for their sexual relations with members of the armed services, as 'besmirching' the good name of women. [10]
In February 1915, Boyle and Damer Dawson disagreed over the use of the WPV to enforce a curfew on women of so-called 'loose character' near a service base in Grantham, which proved unacceptable to Boyle and her beliefs. [11] Boyle also denounced the use of the Defence of the Realm Act by the authorities in Cardiff to impose a curfew on what were described as 'women of a certain class' between the hours of 7pm and 8am. [12] In contrast, Damer Dawson took a more pragmatic line, with the support of most of the WPV's members. [2] As a result of this dispute, Boyle asked for Dawson's resignation, but instead Dawson convened a meeting of 50 policewomen, all but two of whom agreed to follow Dawson's lead. [5]
In 1915, Dawson changed the name of WPV to the Women Police Service, took on Mary Sophia Allen as her second-in-command, and ended all links with the WFL. [13]
While an organisation known as the WPV continued to patrol on its own terms in Brighton and part of London until 1916, Dawson's new service enjoyed much greater success. Its members searched women employed at Ministry of Munitions factories. [14] [15] In August 1915 in Grantham, Edith Smith of the WPS was appointed the first woman police constable in England with full power of arrest. [16] The WPS's benevolent service also founded a babies' home in Kent, which after Dawson's death was renamed the "Damer Dawson Memorial Home for Babies". [5]
As the first uniformed women's police services, the WPV and the WPS helped accustom the government and the British public to women exercising policing functions. By the end of WWI, there were 357 ‘lady policemen’ in London, [6] as well as many others in English cities including Liverpool, Plymouth and Hull. [17]
However, it was the members of a third organization – the Voluntary Women Patrols of the National Union of Women Workers – who would be drawn upon in 1918–1919 for the first members of Britain's first official women's police force, the Metropolitan Police Women Patrols. [18] [19] [20] The first twenty-three women recruited for these Patrols were drawn exclusively from the NUWW's patrolwomen, as was their senior officer Sofia Stanley, though later intakes did include former WPS volunteers. Damer Dawson requested to have all the WPS's volunteers made into official Met patrolwomen, but the Commissioner refused as he felt that it would cause friction because the women were too well educated. [2] [3]
The WPS continued to exist after the introduction of women into police forces such as the Metropolitan Police in 1919, [21] with Allen taking over command after Damer Dawson's death in May 1920. This led to tensions which ultimately culminated in Allen and four other senior WPS patrolwomen being taken to court in March and April 1921 by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner for causing confusion by wearing a uniform too similar to that of the Metropolitan patrol women. [22] This ended in a token fine, a renaming of the force to the Women's Auxiliary Service (WAS), an alteration to its cap badge and an addition of scarlet shoulder straps, all taking effect in mid-May that year. [23] [24]
WPS members had been sent to Ireland in 1920 during the Irish War of Independence to assist the Royal Irish Constabulary as "lady police searchers". [25] Allen's focus became increasingly international – for instance, she represented the WAS on a visit to the British Army of the Rhine in 1923 to advise on the use of women police [26] and led a research trip to see Stanisława Paleolog's women police in Poland. She also assigned it strike-breaking duties during the 1926 General Strike.
When the Lord President of the Council Viscount Halifax set up the Women's Voluntary Services for Civil Defence in 1938, the WAS accepted a government invitation to be represented on the body's Advisory Council. Allen fulfilled this role until January 1940, when she stopped attending its meetings. When asked in the House of Commons on 12 June 1940 if the government would close down WAS, Osbert Peake, Under-Secretary at the Home Office, stated, "It is extremely doubtful whether this so-called organisation has any corporate existence at the present time". [27] From the 1940s onwards the phrase 'Women's Auxiliary Services' was used as a catch-all term for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, Auxiliary Territorial Service, Women's Land Army, nurses and other women in the armed services, rather than for Allen's organisation.
Air Raid Precautions (ARP) refers to a number of organisations and guidelines in the United Kingdom dedicated to the protection of civilians from the danger of air raids. Government consideration for air raid precautions increased in the 1920s and 30s, with the Raid Wardens' Service set up in 1937 to report on bombing incidents. Every local council was responsible for organising ARP wardens, messengers, ambulance drivers, rescue parties, and liaison with police and fire brigades.
Auxiliaries are support personnel that assist the military or police but are organised differently from regular forces. Auxiliary may be military volunteers undertaking support functions or performing certain duties such as garrison troops, usually on a part-time basis. Unlike a military reserve force, an auxiliary force does not necessarily have the same degree of training or ranking structure as regular soldiers, and it may or may not be integrated into a fighting force. Some auxiliaries, however, are militias composed of former active duty military personnel and actually have better training and combat experience than their regular counterparts.
The Auxiliary Territorial Service was the women's branch of the British Army during the Second World War. It was formed on 9 September 1938, initially as a women's voluntary service, and existed until 1 February 1949, when it was merged into the Women's Royal Army Corps.
The Royal Voluntary Service is a voluntary organisation concerned with helping people in need throughout England, Scotland and Wales. It was founded in 1938 by Stella Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading, as a British women's organisation to recruit women into the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) services to help in the event of War.
The Women's Freedom League was an organisation in the United Kingdom from 1907 to 1961 which campaigned for women's suffrage, pacifism and sexual equality. It was founded by former members of the Women's Social and Political Union after the Pankhursts decided to rule without democratic support from their members.
The Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) was a voluntary unit of civilians providing nursing care for military personnel in the United Kingdom and various other countries in the British Empire. The most important periods of operation for these units were during World War I and World War II. Although VADs were intimately bound up in the war effort, they were not military nurses, as they were not under the control of the military, unlike the Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps, the Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service, and the Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service. The VAD nurses worked in field hospitals, i.e., close to the battlefield, and in longer-term places of recuperation back in Britain.
The Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF) was the women's branch of the Royal Air Force. It existed in two separate incarnations: the Women's Royal Air Force from 1918 to 1920 and the Women's Royal Air Force from 1949 to 1994.
The Mechanised Transport Corps (MTC), sometimes erroneously called the Motor Transport Corps, was a British women's organisation that initially provided its own transport and uniforms and operated during the Second World War. It was a civilian uniformed organisation that provided drivers for government departments and other agencies. Among other roles, members drove staff cars, including for foreign dignitaries whose drivers were not accustomed to driving on British roads, and ambulances in the Blitz.
Lilian Mary Elizabeth Wyles was an English female police officer who was among the first officers to take statements from female and juvenile assault victims, rather than relying on "assistants".
Mary Sophia Allen OBE was a British political activist known for her defence of women's rights in the 1910–1920s and later involvement with British fascism. She is chiefly noted as one of the early leaders of the Women's Police Volunteers. Allen repeatedly sought to challenge or modernise the existing systems of the time, ensuring the Women's Police Service could become an auxiliary force after women were admitted into certain British police forces. She stood once for the House of Commons as an Independent Liberal, turning over her Women's Auxiliary Service to breaking the General Strike of 1926. Thereafter she met and talked with European fascists and anti-communist brigades, entailing frequent trips abroad and publicly joining the British Union of Fascists in 1939. In retirement, Allen was an activist for animal rights.
Ethel Violet Bush GM was a British police officer who was one of the two first Metropolitan Women Police awarded a George Medal.
Constance Antonina Boyle was a British journalist, campaigner for women's suffrage and women's rights, charity and welfare worker, and novelist. She was one of the pioneers of women police officers in Britain. In April 1918, she was the first woman to submit a nomination to stand for election to the House of Commons, which paved the way for other female candidates in the December 1918 general election.
Edith Smith was the first female police officer in the United Kingdom with full power of arrest.
Margaret Mary Damer Dawson was an English animal rights activist, anti-vivisectionist and philanthropist who co-founded the first British Women's Police Service.
Mary Pollock Grant, also known as Marion Pollock, was a Scottish suffragette, Liberal Party politician, missionary and policewoman.
Australian women during World War II played a larger role than women had during World War I.
The Joint War Organisation (JWO) was a combined operation of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St John of Jerusalem during the World Wars. It was first created in 1914 and ceased operations when World War I ended in 1919; the organisation was re-formed upon the British entry into World War II in 1939 and was active until its permanent disbanding in 1947. The Joint War Committee (JWC), a non-government administrative body, controlled the JWO and the Joint War Finance Committee managed its finances and concentrated on raising donations and funding.
Women began working as police officers in the United Kingdom as early as December 1915 amidst the First World War. As with other countries, police forces in the UK were entirely male at the start of the 20th century. Their numbers were limited for many decades, but have gradually increased since the 1970s. In England and Wales, 31.2% (40,319) of police officers were female on 31 March 2020. Previously, policewomen made up 28.6% in March 2016, and 23.3% in 2007. Women also make up a majority of the non-sworn police staff. Notable women in British police forces include Cressida Dick, the former commissioner (chief) of the Metropolitan Police Service.
Sofia Anne Stanley was the first female police officer and the first commander of the Metropolitan Police's Women Patrols from 1919 to 1922.
Clara Mary Lambert aliased as Catherine Wilson; May Stewart or Mary Stewart (1874–1969) was a British frequently-arrested suffragette. She took a hatchet to porcelain in the British Museum, smuggled herself into the House of Commons, committed arson and went on hunger strike during her many arrests. Her Hunger Strike Medal recorded dates over a three-year period.