Pioneering female cop from Te Aroha
Gladys O’Brien used to walk Hamilton’s ‘‘mad mile’’, knocking on doors to check for vagrants.
As Hamilton’s first female police officer who was born and raised in Te Aroha, strolling the footpaths of Victoria between Alma and London streets was a daily task.
In the late 1950s, with a 6pm bar closing, you could shoot a gun down Hamilton’s main street and not hit a soul, she says.
‘‘There was nobody in the street. They went home for dinner after work at 6pm,’’ O’Brien said from Garden Place recently, as she celebrated 75 years of women in policing.
O’Brien was among more than 90 uniformed officers who marched down the city’s main street on June 11 in the Hamilton leg of the nationwide torch relay.
When O’Brien first joined police as one of four female recruits in 1954, things were a lot different on the streets.
Daily tasks in Hamilton included foot patrols along the Waikato River and the lake, typing notices for senior officers and picking up drunken male workmates from the local brewery on Victoria St.
‘‘They would go down there for their afternoon beers, before they finished duty, and you would get a call to take someone home.’’
It was during a foot patrol in the city that O’Brien witnessed her first fatal crash.
‘‘A woman was biking along and someone opened the car door and she fell off and the car following ran over her and she was killed instantly.’’
When it was quiet, she would spend time at the Embassy Theatre, watching wrestling and shows. In the evenings, it was sup- per at the taxi office, listening to the radio.
When they did get to go to a case, all women were accompanied by a male officer. As one of two female officers in Hamilton, O’Brien said she was accepted by the male fraternity and given her own office.
Being an officer even secured her a bank loan for her first house in Thackeray St.
‘‘They didn’t give women loans for houses, but as soon as they heard I was a police officer, they reconsidered.’’
As part of the celebrations, a police baton was taken through Morrinsville on a horse and cart then taken to the top of Mt Te Aroha.