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At first, women began organising voluntary police police patrols. These included: Women's Police Volunteers, later known as the Women's Police Service - established by Margaret Damer Dawson and Nina Boyle in 1914. They had joined forces after seeing the trouble faced by refugees during the war.
In March 1889, fourteen more women were employed to act formally as Police Matrons. Their duties, hitherto undertaken largely by the wives of policemen, were to supervise and search female and child offenders while in police stations and the courts.
- Criticisms and Controversies
- An 'Outstanding Personality'
- Edith Smith’s Legacy
Yet Edith Smith’s appointment was controversial. The Home Office advised that women could not be sworn in because they did not count as ‘proper persons’ in the eyes of the law. It had long been established that they could not vote in parliamentary elections or serve on juries for the same reason. In Grantham, however, the Chief Constable and Watch ...
Edith Smith was undoubtedly successful in what she set out to do in Grantham. Dorothy Peto, another pioneer (who headed up the Metropolitan Women Police Branch in the 1930s-40s), described her as ‘of outstanding personality, fearless, motherly and adaptable’. A widow and former midwife, Smith would approach couples who were lying on the grass in th...
The appointment of the first female police officer in 1915 was undoubtedly an important precedent. It enabled women to show that they could undertake a policing role effectively and professionally. Yet the specialist nature of Edith Smith’s duties – in effect morally regulating women and girls – meant that the argument was won on the grounds not of...
Feb 15, 2019 · Almost 100 years later, in 1915, Britain's first female police officer with the power of arrest, Edith Smith, first walked her beat in Lincolnshire. Three years later in 1918, it was decided that...
Women In Policing. 14 May 1917 is an important day in the history of policing. After lots of debate, women would be allowed to be police officers in Birmingham. Mrs Rebecca Lipscombe and Mrs Evelyn Miles were the first two women police officers. They earned 35 shillings a week, which is £1.75 today.
In 1915, Edith Smith became the first female police officer in Britain with full powers of arrest and a year later, the Police Act of 1916 made it possible for women to be appointed as police constables.
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Aug 1, 2024 · Research undertaken by Professor Louise Jackson has led to increased knowledge and understanding of the role of women in UK policing since the First World War.
