‘IF MY DAD SAW MY MUM IN THE STREET HE HAD TO SALUTE HER’
Tributes to pioneering Gladys, 98, who was force’s first female superintendent
TRIBUTES have been paid to a valiant police officer who rose through the ranks to become Staffordshire’s first female superintendent.
Gladys Stokes served the public for more than 30 years as an officer with the old Stoke-on-trent city force, and then Staffordshire Police.
She joined the service in 1946, and retired due to injury in 1976 at the end of an illustrious career. Over the years, she was promoted to sergeant, then chief inspector, and finally superintendent.
Gladys – whose late husband Harold was also a police officer – died at the age of 98 on June 21, at Davlyn House Care Home in Brindley Ford.
Daughter Lynne Ikin, aged 59, from Burslem, said: “My mum received quite a lot of commendations.
“When she had not been on the job for very long, there was a man going around Hanley market, slashing women’s clothes with a razor blade.
“My mum saw him do it and she ran after him and rugby tackled him. She was not scared of anything.”
Before 1946, the year Gladys joined the police, women had to leave the force once they were married, which meant there were very few female officers.
In fact, Gladys, who was given the number WPC4, was one of just six female police officers recruited to work under Sergeant Lily Broadhead.
She was promoted to sergeant after six years. Then when the complement of WPCS was raised to 16, she became the city’s first female inspector.
When the city force amalgamated with Staffordshire Police, she was promoted to chief inspector and deputy of the county’s women’s force.
She was then made superintendent and head of the women police.
Gladys married her husband, Harold Stokes – who was in her class at junior and secondary school in Longton, where they both grew up – in 1950, but by then there was no obligation for married women to leave the force.
Harold joined Gladys in the police – where she outranked him – and they studied together for their police exams and eventually retired on the same day.
They left the force with eight commendations between them.
“My dad was a police sergeant at Stoke,” said Lynne. “If my dad saw my mum in the street he had to salute her.
“My dad had been a lorry driver and he joined the force after mum.
“They both retired in 1976. Mum had a nasty car accident and couldn’t work after that. She had a lot of trouble with her back.
“Dad nursed her through it, but then he was diagnosed with lung cancer. “Dad was only aged 59 when he died in 1981, so they didn’t get to have much of a retirement together.”
Lynne said her mum was ‘very steadfast and a career woman’.
She added: “She was one of eight children. They lived in the Neck End and they were as poor as church mice.
“She worked on the pots, then during the war she worked at Swynnerton ammunition factory.
“She then worked at Lotus Shoes in Stone while she was trying to get in the police.
“She was only the fourth policewoman to join.
“She loved football and all sports. She used to play a lot of darts against the men, and she used to win too.
“After her accident, she couldn’t do any sport, so after dad died she used to go to the sauna three times a week. She made quite a good circle of friends and that kept her going.”
Gladys had one daughter, Lynne, three grandchildren and two greatgrandchildren.