Why is May now saying sorry for 100-year-old snub to first woman PC?
THERESA May apologised yesterday for the way the Home Office snubbed Britain’s first policewoman a century ago.
The Home Secretary said sorry because male Whitehall officials challenged Edith Smith’s right to have full powers of arrest when she was appointed in December 1915.
They advised against allowing her to wear the uniform because women who could not serve on juries or vote were not considered ‘proper persons’.
However, their opinions did not stop Mrs Smith, a widow in her 30s, being sworn in by the local force in her home town of Grantham, Lincolnshire.
The centenary of her breakthrough was marked by Mrs May with a speech celebrating the achievements of women in policing.
Mrs Smith’s pioneering work included
‘Policing really was
a man’s world’
drawing up blacklists of ‘frivolous’ girls who engaged in ‘ unseemly conduct’ with some of the soldiers stationed in the town during the First World War.
The ‘ wayward’ young women were cautioned and barred from the town’s theatres and cinemas. She also provided information for husbands ‘placing their wives under observation during their absence’ with the military.
The first annual report on Mrs Smith’s service recorded that ‘fallen women’ had left town because ‘the policewoman was such a nuisance’.
In her speech at the British Library in London, Mrs May said: ‘A century ago, policing really was a man’s world. And I am sorry to say that my own department was among the first to challenge the recruitment of female police officers.
‘Shortly after the appointment of Britain’s first ever female police constable with official powers of arrest, the Home Office declared that women could not be sworn in as police officers because they were not deemed “proper persons”.
‘It makes you wonder what those officials would say to having a female Home Secretary.’
‘While we have come a long way, we must go further if we are to ensure greater diversity and truly modern police forces that reflect the communities they serve and provide officers able to tackle not only traditional crime but also the changing face of crime.’
The rise in crimes such as child sexual abuse, rape, human trafficking and modern slavery meant forces had an increasing need for officers with ‘understanding, compassion and flexibility’ which would be helped by boosting the number of female officers, she said. Mrs May pointed out the uniform for female officers still included a handbag in the 1980s. There are now 35,700 female officers in England and Wales, 28 per cent of the total, demonstrating their ‘professionalism and bravery’, said Mrs May. She added that female officers stand shoulder-to-shoulder with male colleagues ‘putting themselves on the line’ with some ‘paying the ultimate price’. Mrs May said the first female chief constable was only appointed in 1995 but now there are 43 female chief police officers. Women make up 8 per cent of firearms officers, more than half of mounted police and 45 per cent of specialist crime officers.
The Home Secretary said the progress was ‘no accident’ but ‘the result of the hard work of women in police forces up and down the country’.
Increasing diversity in the police is a key issue for Mrs May. In October, she attacked the lack of ethnic minority officers, saying the situation in some forces was ‘simply not good enough’.