Madge Connor

Madge Irene Connor ( – 12 October 1952) was an Irish-born Australian police officer, who was the first woman to become a member of Victoria Police, and the first policewoman in Victoria, when she was appointed as a police agent in October 1917.

Early life Connor was born in Waterford, Ireland around 1874 (although numerous versions of her name and date of birth exist, the Australian Dictionary of Biography says she was "possibly" born on 14 November 1874). Her father, John McCarthy, was a mariner, and Connor stated that after he was lost at sea when she was aged 2, she lived with family in England, then emigrated to the United States, and later to New Zealand. At the age of 16, she met and married Edward Connor (O'Connor), an English-born labourer, with the couple eloping to Melbourne, Australia.

Police career Connor's husband Edward died suddenly in 1916, and Connor came to the attention of Victoria Police when his death was registered. Later that year, she began working for the police force, investigating illegal gambling and residing undercover in a boarding house to gather evidence against a notorious criminal. In 1917, after a campaign by women's groups to appoint women as police members, Connor was the first of two women to be appointed 'police agents', essentially a type of special constable with half the salary and no powers of arrest, uniform or weapon. and was buried at Boroondara General Cemetery in Kew. In August 2017, Victorian Police Minister Lisa Neville and Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton unveiled a plaque at the cemetery commemorating her role as a pioneer of women in policing, and in November that year, a statue of Connor was unveiled at the Victoria Police Academy. She was posthumously inducted onto the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2019.