Florence Mildred White

Florence Mildred White (10 December 1873 – 29 December 1957) was an English policewoman. She became the first policewoman in Salisbury, Wiltshire in 1918, after training in Bristol and briefly serving in Bath. She joined Birmingham City Police in 1925.

Prior to joining the police force she was a teacher of English in Germany. She later returned to England and taught German, Italian and French at a school in Salisbury, Wiltshire, reaching a senior post. In 1914, aged 41, she moved to the Bath and Bristol city area to join a group of women who had started an unofficial Women's Police Volunteers unit. She returned to Salisbury in 1918 to join the Salisbury City Police. Seven years later she moved to the Birmingham City Police where she attained the rank of Inspector. She stayed with the Birmingham force until her retirement in 1937.

Early life Florence Mildred White was born on 10 December 1873 in the small town of Warminster, Wiltshire. She was the third child and second daughter of Charles Henry White (b. 1845, in Beckington, Somerset) and Marion White (b. 1844, in Preston, near Weymouth, Dorset). Florence Mildred was baptized in the Warminster Minister Church, St. Denys, on 8 March 1874. In 1881 the family lived in Warminster in a villa with a governess, a nurse and two housemaids. Her father was a cheese factor, or manufacturer of local and traditional cheeses. There were four children in the family noted in the census of 1881.

In 1914, White left the Godolphin School; her departure was so sudden that the other teaching staff wrote in the next edition of the school magazine that they were sorry not to have had the opportunity of saying 'Goodbye' to her. In a School Year Book In 1912 Tancred, Peto and three other women campaigners started organising unofficial street patrols from an office in Bath, Somerset and later Bristol "to maintain public morality and decency". The creation of the Bath office in 1912 was considered to be the first in England. It was disbanded in the latter half of World War One. In 1914 Peto, as Chief, had joined the National Union of Women Workers and made patrols herself. White abruptly left her teaching post at the Godolphin School in 1914 to live and work in the office of the group in Bath, where Peto had become the Assistant Patrols Organizer. White stayed working under the supervision of Peto as a patrol officer in the city until May 1918. She was at this time 44 years old and is mentioned in an article The Women Patrols – Miss I. Douglas, Miss White and Miss G. Bagnall and others spent many evenings, wet or fine, at this most difficult and exacting work. During the war Mildred White acted as a prisoner's friend at a court martial when she answered a call for 'women of a special type' to which she responded.

As the end of the First World War was approaching there were several other groups of women's police voluntary patrols in other major cities in Great Britain. These consisted of 'well-bred' women patrolling the city streets to help women and children who needed assistance or who became involved in crime.

Sir Leonard Dunning, (1861–1941) knighted on 14 February 1917, His Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary between 1912 and 1930, wrote an article in a police magazine in 1918. About two of the six pages of his annual report concerned the employment of women into professional police work, including the possibility of them having the powers of arrest. Many chief constables saw the role of women as clerks and chauffeurs and thought women could possibly be employed as special constables. The Chief Constable of Wolverhampton wrote an article in Police Review and Parade Ground Gossip in which he listed a range of duties women could undertake within the force.

Salisbury City Police

With the possible end in sight of World War One there was much discussion within the male dominated British police force about the role women were going to play. His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Sir Leonard Dunning who seven years later would give Mildred White a reference for a post within the Birmingham City Police, concluded that such employment was a matter for individual police authorities.

Mildred White moved to Salisbury to join the Salisbury City Police as its first female member. She worked at the police station in Endless Street which was purpose built in the 1880s as the third police station within the city; it housed all the offices needed for the city force, a parade ground in its centre and it had several stables at the back. The chief constable had his accommodation there.

On 26 May 1918 White joined the Salisbury City Police and was attested immediately. Because she was attested she had the same rights as a male constable. and she was promoted to 11th class constable with an increase in salary of £2 per week. On 22 May 1919 she was promoted from 11th class constable to 10th class constable to take effect from 25 May 1919 at an increase of £2.1s.0d per week. This was again revised when she was transferred from 10th class constable old scale to 12th class constable, new scale, back dated to 1 April 1919 with a salary increase of £3.12s 0d per week. By 1920 she was a sergeant. Her duties were plainclothes work in the mornings and city patrol work, in uniform, in the evenings. In February 1919 she attended a Salisbury City Court hearing as a prosecution witness at an alleged bigamy trial. Because she was attested she had the power of arrest; in contrast, Dorothy Peto remained an unattested Lady Enquiry Officer. Dorothy Peto maintained she would not accept a rank below inspector, on selection, control on the future employment conditions and attesting of women in the Service. Two H.M. Inspectors of Constabulary gave evidence as did some thirteen others from various ranks and locations within the countrywide police force. Sergeant Mildred White from the Salisbury City force attended as did Sergeant Gale of the Gloucestershire force. It was specifically pointed out to the Committee that Sergeant White and Sergeant Gale were already attested female policewomen. Another who attended was Lillian Wyles who was to write a book later of her experiences.

On 16 November 1921 the Metropolitan Commissioner of Police, Sir Nevil Macready, who was considered to be setting the standard throughout England, issued an order that with the possibility of women being appointed in the Police Service they would be in line with requirements for male officers; "a minimum height would be established, though at 5 feet 4 inches this was considerably lower than that for men." (White was officially documented as being five feet five and one half inches tall so qualified in stature.) Macready added that women with dependent young children would be barred from service, women officers were not to be sworn in as constables, and they would not have the right to a pension. Salisbury, Gloucestershire, Liverpool and Glasgow had attested women Constables but it appears only White of Salisbury paid into a pension and had equality with male constables.

In 1925 Peto left the Birmingham City Police, and White applied to the City of Birmingham for Peto's post. The choice of force may have been coincidental with the Peto post becoming vacant, but the Richardson family had strong connections with Birmingham since Frank Richardson (Senior) (Chief Constable of Hereford from 1882 to 1920) started his police career in Birmingham in 1871. White very quickly made contact with Sir Leonard Dunning (17 June 1860–8 Feb 1941), still the Chief Inspector of the Constabulary, asking him if he would give her a reference for the post in Birmingham. Dunning duly wrote to the Chief Constable of Birmingham City Police, Sir Charles Rafter (1857– 23 August 1935), from his home in Horsham. Peto notes the White, having already been sworn in at the Salisbury Force, was able to make her transfer and to carry her "attested work" with her. Commencing work in Birmingham Peto did not have the power of arrest.

On 1 May 1925 Chief Constable Frank Richardson sent a Certificate of Approved Service to Chief Constable Rafter and confirmed "Miss Florence Mildred White is resigning from the Salisbury Force to take up an appointment with the Birmingham Force." He described the duties of their posts to the Salisbury Watch Committee in 1929: "In addition to the policewoman's ordinary police duties such as acting as matron to female prisoners, patrolling the streets and making enquiries concerning women and young persons etc., she has carried out a considerable amount of necessary, although unofficial welfare and rescue work". When Frank Richardson initiated a photograph of all police officers in 1929 Mouland sat to his immediate left.

When White left the Salisbury Constabulary she left her truncheon behind as a gift to her chief constable. It is smaller than the truncheon used by male constables and much lighter in weight. as a Lady Enquiry Officer (an attested sergeant) in R Division in the Criminal Investigation Department. From 3 June, she attended the Birmingham Police School to take instruction on General State Law, amendments to the Vagrancy Law, Punishments on Incest, Evidence and Procedure Taking of Statements and Elementary First Aid. On 18 June she passed her course with the note from her instructor, "A keen hardworking woman with a very high standard of intelligence and should make a reliable person for her class of work." Also in 1930 Chief Constable Rafter gave evidence to a Royal Commission on Police Powers and Procedure. The commission noted with satisfaction the Birmingham Force was starting to appoint women police constables. (By 1935, the women's police department had seventeen female officers, including uniformed and plain-clothes women constables and a woman enquiry officer (White) attached to the detective department.) The Detective Department by now had its own offices in Steelhouse Lane, adjoining the new central police station. By 1930 the Birmingham City Police thus allowed the attesting of women as police officers. White, already an attested Sergeant, was immediately promoted to the rank of Inspector on 1 April 1930, making her in all probability the first attested female Inspector in the country. New Pay Scales were published headed, "New Pay Scales, Allowances and Conditions of Service of Women Police." Named the Policewoman's Review it published two articles relevant to Mildred White and Salisbury. The first was a letter from Colonel T. E. Fowle. concerning women in the police force. The Editor of the Review writes further "There is one policewoman in Salisbury but none in the Wiltshire Constabulary. The second was an article on the Salisbury City Police headed Policewoman in Salisbury. Salisbury has had the services of a policewoman since 1918. A Miss Mouland, the present holder of that office was appointed in February 1927. The Women Police Regulation was issued on 10 July 1931. In 1930 the police negotiated for its force members to be treated at the local Dental Hospital. the protection of women was quite dominant and White's personal importance in CID increased. Peto was credited with using the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 to take ownership of cases involving child abuse and based on that establish a special role for policewomen. In 1933 the majority of interviews with women involved in indecency was being taken by policewomen where, like Birmingham, they were available.

On 26 February 1937, White had applied to her superintendent for retirement. He conveyed the request to the chief constable.

Retirement and death

Inspector Florence Mildred White, aged 63 years, retired from the Birmingham City Police on 31 May 1937, Birmingham City Police kept its serving officers in touch with previous officers in a publication called The Order, and a notice of her death appeared on 8 January 1958. In 1977 a new accommodation building was ready for occupation in the Salisbury City Police complex and a suggestion was made by the Wiltshire Constabulary, Devizes, that it be named the Mildred White Building.