Women's Police Service
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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.


Women Police Volunteers

Before the
First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, campaigners for
women's rights Women's rights are the rights and Entitlement (fair division), entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st c ...
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). Several women’s movements campaigned for more representation in this area; however the outbreak of war prevented any progress. In 1914,
Nina Boyle Constance Antonina Boyle (21 December 1865 – 4 March 1943) 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. ...
and
Margaret Damer Dawson Margaret Mary Damer Dawson (12 June 1873 – 18 May 1920) was an English animal rights activist, anti-vivisectionist and philanthropist who co-founded the first British Women's Police Service. Early life Margaret Dawson was born on 12 June ...
met when Damer Dawson was working for the Criminal Law Amendment Committee in 1914. Both Boyle and 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. They were also concerned about existing
prostitutes Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-p ...
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 Sir Edward Richard Henry, 1st Baronet, (26 July 1850 – 19 February 1931) was the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis (head of the Metropolitan Police of London) from 1903 to 1918. His time in the post saw the first discussions on the ...
,
Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis is the head of London's Metropolitan Police Service. Sir Mark Rowley was appointed to the post on 8 July 2022 after Dame Cressida Dick announced her resignation in February 2022. The rank of Comm ...
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. Boyle led the organisation with Dawson as assistant. Boyle herself was one of the first women to appear in a police uniform. Crawford, Elizabeth. (1999) ''Nina Boyle'' in ''The Women's Suffrage Movement: a reference guide, 1866–1928''; UCL Press. p. 75. As well as the Women Police Volunteers, women from the National Union of Women Workers, became the National Council of 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 of arrest The power of arrest is a mandate given by a central authority that allows an individual to remove a criminal's (or suspected criminal's) liberty. The power of arrest can also be used to protect a person, or persons from harm or to protect damage t ...
.


Tensions over WPV's role

Boyle's background was in the
Women's Freedom League 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 Pa ...
(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
munitionette Munitionettes were British women employed in munitions factories during the time of the First World War. History Early in the war, the United Kingdom's munitions industry found itself having difficulty producing the amount of weapons and ammunit ...
s. 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. She also deplored the adoption of Regulation 40D, an anti-prostitution amendment to the
Defence of the Realm Act The Defence of the Realm Act 1914 ( 4 & 5 Geo. 5. c. 29) (DORA) was passed in the United Kingdom on 8 August 1914, four days after the country entered the First World War. It was added to as the war progressed. It gave the government wide-ranging ...
, that in many people's view revived some of the objectionable features of the nineteenth-century
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. She described Regulation 40D, which punished women for their sexual relations with members of the armed services, as 'besmirching' the good name of women. In February 1915, Boyle and Damer Dawson disagreed over the use of the WPV to enforce a
curfew A curfew is an order that imposes certain regulations during specified hours. Typically, curfews order all people affected by them to remain indoors during the evening and nighttime hours. Such an order is most often issued by public authorit ...
on women of so-called 'loose character' near a service base in
Grantham Grantham () is a market town and civil parish in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, situated on the banks of the River Witham and bounded to the west by the A1 road (Great Britain), A1 road. It lies south of Lincoln, England ...
, which proved unacceptable to Boyle and her beliefs. Boyle also denounced the use of the Defence of the Realm Act by the authorities in
Cardiff Cardiff (; ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. Cardiff had a population of in and forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area officially known as the City and County of Ca ...
to impose a curfew on what were described as 'women of a certain class' between the hours of 7pm and 8am. In contrast, Damer Dawson took a more pragmatic line, with the support of most of the WPV's members. 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.


Women's Police Service

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. While an organisation known as the WPV continued to patrol on its own terms in
Brighton Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...
and part of London until 1916, Dawson's new service enjoyed much greater success. Its members searched women employed at
Ministry of Munitions The Minister of Munitions was a British government position created during the First World War to oversee and co-ordinate the production and distribution of munitions for the war effort. The position was created in response to the Shell Crisis o ...
factories. In August 1915 in
Grantham Grantham () is a market town and civil parish in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, situated on the banks of the River Witham and bounded to the west by the A1 road (Great Britain), A1 road. It lies south of Lincoln, England ...
, Edith Smith of the WPS was appointed the first woman police
constable A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions. ''Constable'' is commonly the rank of an officer within a police service. Other peo ...
in England with full power of arrest. 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".


Interwar changes

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, as well as many others in English cities including Liverpool, Plymouth and Hull. However, it was the members of a third organization – the Voluntary Women Patrols of the
National Union of Women Workers The National Council of Women of Great Britain (NCWGB) exists to co-ordinate the voluntary efforts of women across Great Britain. Founded as the National Union of Women Workers, it said that it would "promote sympathy of thought and purpose amon ...
– 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. The first twenty-three women recruited for these Patrols were drawn exclusively from the NUWW's patrolwomen, as was their senior officer
Sofia Stanley Sofia Anne Stanley (28 January 1873 – 24 September 1953) was the first female police officer and the first commander of the Metropolitan Police's Women in law enforcement in the United Kingdom#Entry into the profession, Women Patrols from 1919 ...
, though later intakes did include former WPS volunteers. 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. The Commissioner was also against employing women who had been militant
suffragettes A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for women's suffrage, the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in part ...
before the war, as some of the WPS, such as Mary Sophia Allen and Isobel Goldingham had been. The WPS continued to exist after the introduction of women into police forces such as the Metropolitan Police in 1919, with Allen taking over command after 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. 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. WPS members had been sent to Ireland in 1920 during the
Irish War of Independence The Irish War of Independence (), also known as the Anglo-Irish War, was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (1919–1922), Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and Unite ...
to assist the
Royal Irish Constabulary The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC, ; simply called the Irish Constabulary 1836–67) was the police force in Ireland from 1822 until 1922, when all of the island was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom. A sep ...
as "lady police searchers". Allen's focus became increasingly international – for instance, she represented the WAS on a visit to the
British Army of the Rhine British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) was the name given to British Army occupation forces in the Rhineland, West Germany, after the First and Second World Wars, and during the Cold War, becoming part of NATO's Northern Army Group (NORTHAG) tasked ...
in 1923 to advise on the use of women police 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 The 1926 general strike in the United Kingdom was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 to 12 May 1926. It was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British government ...
.


Decline

When the
Lord President of the Council The Lord President of the Council is the presiding officer of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom and the fourth of the Great Officers of State, ranking below the Lord High Treasurer but above the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal. The Lor ...
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".{{cite web, url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1940/jun/12/womens-auxiliary-service, work=
Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) ''Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)'' is the official name of the transcripts of debates in the New Zealand Parliament. New Zealand was one of the first countries to establish an independent team of ''Hansard'' reporters, 42 years before the Parlia ...
, date=12 June 1940, title=WOMEN'S AUXILIARY SERVICE – House of Commons debate, 12 June 1940, volume 361 cc1254-5
From the 1940s onwards the phrase 'Women's Auxiliary Services' was used as a catch-all term for the
Women's Auxiliary Air Force The Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), whose members were referred to as WAAFs (), was the female auxiliary of the British Royal Air Force during the World War II, Second World War. Established in 1939, WAAF numbers exceeded 181,000 at its peak ...
,
Auxiliary Territorial Service The Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS; often pronounced as an acronym) was the women's branch of the British Army during the World War II, Second World War. It was formed on 9 September 1938, initially as a women's voluntary service, and existe ...
,
Women's Land Army The Women's Land Army (WLA) was a British civilian organisation created in 1917 by the Board of Agriculture during the First World War to bring women into work in agriculture, replacing men called up to the military. Women who worked for the ...
, nurses and other women in the armed services, rather than for Allen's organisation.


References


Bibliography

* Mary S. Allen, ''The Pioneer Policewoman'', Chatto & Windus. London, 1925 * R.M. Douglas, ''Feminist Freikorps: The British Voluntary Women police'', 1914–1940. Praeger Publishers, Westport. 1999 * Louise A. Jackson, ''Women Police. Gender, Welfare, and Surveillance in the Twentieth Century'', Manchester University Press, 2006 * Phillipa Levine, '"Walking the Streets in a Way No Decent Woman Should": Women Police in World War I.', ''The Journal of Modern History'' 1994; 66(1):34–78 * Joan Lock, ''The British Policewoman. Her Story'' (Robert Hale, 1979). 1914 establishments in the United Kingdom Women's organisations based in the United Kingdom United Kingdom home front during World War I Law enforcement in the United Kingdom Women in law enforcement