Women in blue walk the beat
FOR a long time it was just boys in blue pounding the beat.
Women were admitted to the police in 1941 and were recruited with advertisements targeting ‘‘single and widowed ladies’’.
They wore hats, gloves, carried handbags and were not allowed to wear a uniform. They were also banned from driving police cars and making arrests, with their duties mostly limited to dealing with women and children.
But that all changed in 1952. ‘‘Women police in New Zealand will shortly be put into uniform’’, proclaimed The Evening Post on July 28 that year.
The Minister of Police, Wilfred Fortune, told the paper the ‘‘neat, blue uniforms’’ would be the same as those worn by London’s policewomen.
‘‘It will proclaim beyond doubt the identity and authority of the wearer, and will gain for her public support where otherwise that might not be forthcoming.’’
Eight women were selected to be trained in Wellington as the first uniformed policewomen.
In December that year, they graduated from training and were inspected on parade at police headquarters.
‘‘The attractive young women are dressed in a becoming uniform. Well-cut serge with neat skirts, dark stocks and black shoes Policewomen did not train at the same place as men until the Trentham Police Training School opened in 1956. proved a pleasing costume with sufficient severity to give authority,’’ The Evening Post said on December 19, 1952.
The duties of policewomen were largely restricted to patrolling public areas, dealing with women prisoners, finding runaway girls and lost children, and helping women.
Women and men trained together for the first time when the Trentham Police Training School opened in 1956.
In 1958, the first woman passed the police sergeant’s examination to qualify for promotion, and by 1965, there were in New Zealand.
But women still had a long way to go. They didn’t receive equal pay until 1973, weren’t allowed to wear trousers until 1977, and it wasn’t until the 1980s that they fully had the equal status and duties of policemen.
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