New non-fiction: The British Policewoman by Joan Lock

The British Policewoman 

Here, now fully updated for the twenty-first century, is the complex and fascinating history of the formation of the British Women Police. Full of drama, intrigue and humour, it also captures, through well-authenticated primary material, the colour and manner of the times.

Remarkable women abound in this book, from the wealthy and eccentric Margaret Damer Dawson to the excitement-hungry ex-suffragette Mary Allen; and from the alluring but ill-starred Mrs Stanley to the tireless Mrs Peto. A few famous faces like Winston Churchill, Lady Astor and Adolf Hitler also feature, as does the women police’s arch-enemy: the magistrate Frederick Mead.

The pressure for the appointment of women police began well before World War I. Anti-white-slave traffic organizations felt they would help to stem the flow of prostitutes to and from Europe and suffragettes wanted them to ensure fairer treatment for women from the police and courts of law. But it was the Great War that gave them a launching pad for their battle.

Early policewomen fought much public and police prejudice, wondering all the time how far to hold out for their ideals and how much to compromise for the sake of some official recognition; the eternal problem when breaking new ground. Their story, which was played out not only in the streets and courts of Great Britain and the House of Commons but in a defeated Germany and strife-torn 1920s Ireland, as well as in prohibition-era USA, ended in victory with their official integration into the force in the 1970s, but the battle did not end there, as our story shows…

Joan Lock

Ex-nurse and policewoman Joan Lock has written seven Victorian crime fiction titles and eight non-fiction police/crime books, including three on Scotland Yard’s first detectives. She has also written short stories, radio plays and radio documentaries, as well as working as a columnist on the leading police journal, Police Review, and Red Herrings, the magazine of the Crime Writers Association.

Buy your copy of The British Policewoman here

OUT NOW: The Princess Alice Disaster by Joan Lock

Ex-nurse and policewoman Joan Lock has written eight non-fiction police/crime books, including three on Scotland Yard’s first detectives and a history of the British Women Police – a subject on which she is an authority. Dead Born (Hale, 2001), the second of her seven volume Victorian crime series was based around the Princess Alice disaster.

Joan has also written short stories, radio plays and radio documentaries, as well as working as a columnist on the leading police journal, Police Review, and Red Herrings, the magazine of the Crime Writers Association.

The Princess Alice Disaster by Joan Lock

The collision of the Princess Alice pleasure steamer with the Tyne collier, Bywell Castle, in the Thames in September 1878 resulted in Britain’s worst-ever inland waterway accident. Almost 650 Princess Alice passengers and crew died. Whole families were wiped out; many children were left orphans; parents childless. The nation wept.

Joan Lock describes vividly the lead up to the accident, the disaster itself and its aftermath. She then delves into the quarrels that the tragedy devolved into, as each side blamed the other during the extended inquiries to discover just how the accident happened and why so many people drowned. In the process, the author makes a startling discovery….

The Princess Alice Disaster by Joan Lock is available to buy now