Reports

Gateshead Meeting - May 2002 "From Suffragette to Lady Policeman" by Harry Wynne A Report by Margaret Stafford

On Tuesday evening Harry Wynne was our speaker, an enthusiast about his subject with an immense amount of knowledge. His topic was, "From suffragette to lady policeman", condensing 100 years or more of the story of women in the police force, with some wonderful illustrations and photos to show both the personalities involved and the changing uniform (one of which was designed by Norman Hartnell!).

As we all know to our cost, it is easy to be sidetracked when doing research and this was what happened to Harry whilst indexing the Police Reviews and Police Chronicles from 1893 onwards now housed at Beamish Museum (incidentally they can be viewed by prior appointment). He got to 1899 and was taken by a reference to the London female police, apparently a group of women in Covent Garden who became, in effect, "traffic officers", trying to control the chaotic traffic around Covent Garden. The carters, naturally, objected to this and would hurl potatoes and turnips at the women.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in London, a young woman named Mary S Allen was part of the suffrage movement and was responsible for throwing a brick, neatly wrapped in brown paper tied with string, through a window in Whitehall, she was arrested and fined 2s 6d. She came from a very good background, as did so many of the suffragettes, her father being the General Manager of the Great Western Railway. Mary Allen went on to be a hunger striker.

Harry elaborated that tactics employed by the suffragettes included wearing ski masks for disguise, using catapults to fire ball - bearings, petrol bombs and Indian clubs with fiercesome nails - not quite the antecedents you would expect for a woman who went on to play a major role in the development of the Womens' Police Force!

Harry then treated us to another aside as he explained the origins of the term "Black Maria" - the original Maria was a police matron in Chicago, a big black woman, height about 6'4" - built "like a tank" - the call would go up when she was needed "send for Black Maria" and the transport waggons became known by her name.

Anyway, to return to London, the First World War meant the suffrage movement went on hold as women were needed in all areas and they hoped this would allow them to prove their worth.

As vast camps of men were set up prior to embarkation, there followed groups of young women suffering from "khaki fever" - all those men in one place! The National Union of Women Workers was set up as women began taking jobs looking after stations etc . They began to be concerned about the welfare of these girls and Nina Boyle led a group of women dressed in riding hats, Norfolk jackets with an armband and skirt who patrolled these areas and kept order - with a signed receipt from the Metropolitan police giving them authority to do so!

At about the same time, Margaret Damer Dawson, another philanthropist, with a keen interest in animal welfare as well, became concerned about the safety of female Belgian refugees who were being accosted by men and she started the Women Police Volunteers who were also uniformed (for many years the women had to use the same uniform as the men - watch the photos to see when the buttons start to be fastened the female way!).

The action now switches to Grantham, where there was a camp of about 40,000 men, with the attendant girls or camp followers. Damer Dawson's volunteers went there with the agreement of the Chief Constable of Grantham to set up patrols and enforce the curfew which was imposed only on the girls.

Nina Boyle opposed the imposition of the curfew on the girls only, feeling it should apply to all, but in a vote by the great and the good, she was roundly defeated and left.

Damer Dawson was the more popular woman and was "one of the girls" in the sense of doing everything she asked her volunteers to do. The rivalry between the 2 women must have been considerable as when when a booklet was published about women police by the National Union of Women Workers (Nina Boyle's organisation) there was no mention of Daymer Dawson.

Damer Dawson's Women Police Volunteers spread around the country with training camps at Bristol, where the first Director was Dorothy Peto. To be accepted as a Volunteer you had to be at least 28 years old, mature and have money to support yourself as the pay was poor.

The next milestone was in 1915 when Edith Smith became the first official police woman, again in Grantham, having full police powers.

In 1916 the shortage of shells on the Western front led to the formation of the Ministry of Munitions (we have the legacy still in the region in Newton Aycliffe and Birtley in what became the Royal Ordnance factories).

The largest site was at Longtown, near Gretna with a population of 30,000 - offering better wages than shop assistants or those in service could earn so the jobs were popular with women. Margaret Damer Dawson's Volunteers were sent to look after them - policing them.

We had another aside here as Harry told us of a wooden plaque he acquired from a shop in Carlisle. It bore the name of a member of the Womens' Police Force - M. Farrer 1916. This was not a name Harry had come across in his research but, as luck would have it, about 3 weeks later a friend in Manchester who deals in Antiquarian books rang him to say he had a copy of Pioneer Policewomen written in 1923 by Mary S Allen (hope you've been concentrating and can remember our suffragette with the well-wrapped brick!!). She had become Assistant Commandant of the Women Police Volunteers under Margaret Damer Dawson, later taking over from her. The book contained a nominal roll of all the armaments factories and there, at Gretna, were the details of 160 police women, including of course, M Farrer, Sergeant!!

(I would add at this point Harry claims not to be a family historian but we did warn him he shows all the signs - getting sidetracked, obsessional collecting of names, following up on issues which really should be left alone......)

Eventually there was a force of 1,000 Volunteers throughout the country policing the armaments factories. The girls who worked there were called Canaries because the cordite turned their skin yellow, the police women were known as Copperettes.

By this time one or two police forces had police women - we saw a rather fetching photo of a group in Wolverhampton whose uniform was grey, Birkenhead had another group.

With the Armistice the contract for the Women police volunteers was not extended, coming to an end in January 1919. Then came the bitter blow as the former Volunteers who had been suffragettes were rejected when they wished to join the police service - on the basis that as suffragettes they had been law-breakers and were therefore ineligible!

To add insult to injury, the Metropolitan Police force, which had had women policing Woolwich arsenal, took out summonses against the Women Police Force for wearing the police uniform! But the momentum was unstoppable.

The service was re-named the Womens' Auxiliary Service (the forerunner of the ATS) and amongst other things they were asked to send volunteers to Ireland to assist the Royal Irish Constabulary, 6 went. Volunteers were also sent to the British Army of the Rhine in 1923 to start training German women police officers.

1 or 2 forces started to take women and form Police Womens' Departments, where they were usually responsible for looking after women prisoners and children . Lilian Wiles became the first woman CID officer around 1922/23.

Margaret Damer Dawson, having been awarded the OBE, died in the 1920s and Mary Allen took over as Commandant (we saw photos of both these women in their uniforms - both looking very masculine aboard a motorcycle combination) but Mary had become disillusioned and embittered. She became an admirer of Hitler and associated with Sir Oswald Moseley.

Gradually however women police officers were being accepted. Here in the North East, Durham set up a women police auxiliary force in 1940, largely clerical staff but it had its first official Police Woman in 1946 a Sunderland woman, Sybil Findlay.

Change in the role of women officers was slow. Until 1942 a policeman's wife could not work, although in rural areas she would sometimes look after the police station - unpaid - or carry out Matron's duties, earning 2s 6d for feeding prisoners or searching female prisoners.

The government then forced the issue by setting quotas for the number of women officers. Post World War 2 the major change came in 1974 with the Sex Equality Act when Womens' Departments ended and women became Police Officers, required to do the same job as the men - a far cry from the first "Lady Policeman".

We are hoping to persuade Harry to do an article for the Journal which will give much more detail than this gallop through 100 years of history permits!

For further info Harry recommends visiting the website set up by the police history society, www. nepolicehistory. homestead. com. Many of you will know there is also a police mailing list POLICE-UK-L@rootsweb.com

Harry is pleased to try and help anyone with an interest in police history - especially the Durham force area. His other particular interest is the history of the MoD police force which started when "Pepys was a boy" in 1686 - but that's a topic for another day!