The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective

by Susannah Stapleton

  As early as 1899, for example, Cassell’s Saturday Journal had revealed that the Yard was employing private lady detectives on the sly:

  More than one … is working fairly regularly for the department, but who they are none but the authorities know. They are paid by fees, and frequently receive as much as £10 for a single case. Such secrecy, however, is used in their employment that even their receipts are signed in fictitious names.11

  They were still there, unofficial and unseen, in February 1914, according to the London correspondent of the Leicester Daily Post: ‘… there has lately been a considerable addition to the number of trained women employed by Scotland Yard on detective work in various directions,’ he wrote. ‘Although these lady detectives seldom come into the limelight in big cases they form a very valued part of the organisation at Scotland Yard.’12 The article mentioned their work with West End palmists, which seemed to extend beyond the case I had found, and said they were also doing ‘splendid service’ with regard to prosecutions under the new white slave traffic legislation and in keeping an eye on militant suffragettes.

  The same year, the Daily Mirror had reported that Scotland Yard was using female private detectives at the House of Commons. They would sit in the ladies’ gallery during contentious debates, ready to pounce on any suffragette intruders before they could make a scene. ‘They are so fashionably attired,’ the paper reported, ‘as to be quite indistinguishable from the usual gathering.’13

  Just like male private detectives before them, Scotland Yard had discovered that there were some situations in which employing a smart woman was the only way to go. But why keep it so hush-hush? Perhaps the furore that erupted after Sir Nevil Macready introduced his women’s patrols in 1918 offered a clue.

  In line with the bulk of work that women police volunteers had done during the war, the primary purpose of Macready’s women’s patrols (he objected to the term ‘women police’) was to control prostitution. They had no powers of arrest, and their terms of employment were extremely poor: short contracts, a wage which could only be accepted by those with private incomes, and no pension. This was justified in part by the fact that one of the prerequisites for these early recruits was that they came from reasonably refined – and wealthy – families, the assumption being that they would have to rely on class and character to assert authority rather than physical presence.

  Even with these limitations, eyebrows were raised. The real row, however, began after various political manoeuvrings in 1919 resulted in an unexpectedly forward-thinking piece of legislation achieving royal assent that December: the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act gave women the right to enter professions from which they had previously been barred. They could now qualify as solicitors, barristers, accountants and veterinary surgeons, serve as jurors and gain university degrees. Some exceptions were outlined in the legislation (women could not, for example, work in the diplomatic service), but what about the police? Should an exception be made there, too?

  A committee was convened in 1920 to consider the matter. Led by Sir John Baird of the Home Office, the committee took evidence from police forces throughout the country, whilst others piled into the debate in the press.

  Many of the arguments were well worn and predictable. Could women’s dainty feet withstand eight hours or more on the beat? How would they protect themselves? They couldn’t be armed, surely? What if their weapons were snatched from their hands and used against them? What effect would they have on their male colleagues? It was a given that female recruits could never give orders to men,14 but might their presence cause trouble of a different kind? As one magistrate pointed out, male and female officers out on the beat together would be ‘sufficiently youthful for the ordinary human passions to be in full play …’15

  And what about male criminals? How would they feel? One faction argued, perfectly seriously, in 1924:

  Of course, nobody worth calling a man would allow himself to be forcibly conveyed to a police station by a woman; if she attempted to use force, he would be morally bound to restrain her until the arrival of a male constable.16

  Underlying all this, whilst also contradicting many of the arguments about women’s inability to withstand a bit of a scuffle, were concerns that many of the voluntary wartime patrols had their roots in the suffragette movement. Sir Nevil Macready warned that recruitment into the official police force had to be carefully managed so as to avoid women with extreme views, such as ‘the vinegary spinster or blighted middle-aged fanatic.’17 He had already declared war on Margaret Damer Dawson of the WPS and was trying to get her military-inspired voluntary patrols off his patch.

  But many of these women were vinegary for good reason, having witnessed first-hand how the criminal justice system treated their sex. Force-feeding and sexual assault aside, Nina Boyle, one of the founders of the WPV, had been campaigning for segregated police vans ever since a fellow Women’s Freedom League member had to endure an ‘orgy of indecency’ between a male prisoner and a prostitute en route to Holloway.18 Between 1913 and 1918, the League’s journal, the Vote, had employed a court reporter to provide a running commentary on the respective ‘justice’ meted out to male and female prisoners, which was enough to make any woman, spinster or not, pickled with vinegary rage.19 Women were treated with disrespect whether they were appearing in the dock or the witness box. Sentencing, too, was discriminatory: grievous bodily harm against a woman might get a man three months imprisonment, but a woman convicted of soliciting could receive nine months plus hard labour.20

  To its credit, Sir John Baird’s committee was unmoved by the more alarmist opinions swirling around. In August 1920, after hearing all the evidence, it recommended that women aged between twenty-five and thirty should be recruited to the police, albeit in a limited capacity, and that good training and pay were essential if they were to be effective. It added that they should be sworn in and given powers of arrest, but should not have to perform duties that might expose them to physical danger.21 As for the work they could do, it was agreed that this should be restricted to issues concerning women and children. When the Home Office circulated the report to constabularies around the country, however, it included a note suggesting that the recommendations regarding pay and powers of arrest were best ignored.22

  The debate was far from over. Whilst the Baird Committee was still taking evidence, Sir Nevil Macready had left Scotland Yard to take command of the British troops in the Irish War of Independence. In 1922, his successor ordered the immediate disbandment of the women’s patrols (or ‘Macready’s Monsters’, as some preferred), ostensibly as a cost-cutting measure. After a huge row, they clung on in diminished numbers, but the mithering continued. At the same time, however, others were wondering whether the time had come for women to be included in other areas of police work – as detectives, for example.

  In a letter to the Baird Committee in 1920, Sir Nevil had presented a shopping list of women he wanted for specialist investigative work at Scotland Yard:

  I want to have the woman I can put into an evening dress, with some diamonds or whatever she wears, and send to a place to mix with other people, and also I want women at the other end of the scale. Then some nurses are excellent. It is very good to have women with nursing experience.23

  Sir Nevil wasn’t alone. The Lancashire Constabulary had also been experimenting with female detectives. The chief constable explained that they assisted with all manner of cases, including murder, and had proved invaluable when eliciting more sensitive, personal information from female witnesses, especially when it came to dealing with Sinn Fein in the area. Whether they were truly the equals of their male counterparts, however, was open to question. The police historian Joan Lock, having spoken to veterans of these early years, concluded in 1979 that their work was ‘largely clerical and secretarial with the occasional decency statement, pickpocket observation … and decoy duty during spates of sexual attacks.’24

  All the evidence from Lancashire and Sir Nevi
l was brought before another inquiry into the use of women in the police that took place in 1924. When the Bridgeman Committee issued its report that August, it reinforced the Baird conclusions and made the additional recommendation that women be admitted as plain-clothes detectives at the discretion of each force.

  Inevitably, as London’s most high-profile female detective, Maud was approached by the press for her opinion on this particular development. ‘I think that some women are admirably fitted for detective work,’ she told the Manchester Guardian in 1924, ‘… they would be a great asset to the country.’25 This wasn’t just because they could slip into an evening dress or wheedle information out of female suspects. In some ways, she said, they were better suited to the work than men, echoing what she had said a few years earlier in the New York Tribune:

  I employ women in every investigation requiring subtlety, craft, guesswork, diplomatic conversation, or plain common sense … For the finer and more delicate work I invariably find that a woman is able to clear up the case in much less time than a man. She has more tact, quicker perception, and an equally vivid imagination.26

  This, in turn, reminded me of something Antonia Moser had said in 1901 about working with Maurice Moser: ‘One thing is very curious, that we both attack the same case in entirely different ways, and arrive at our results sometimes from opposite poles.’27

  Britain’s lady detectives had always known that they brought a unique perspective to investigative work, and now the authorities were listening. But when Maud said that some women made good detectives, she meant just that: some women. Following the Bridgeman report, Scotland Yard had been inundated with letters from prospective recruits, something Maud had been dealing with for years:

  Never a day passes without my getting letters from people who tell me that they have a special gift for this work, and that all their lives they have wanted to do it … They send me their photographs, and when they do not write they telephone. Why do they do it? They have been to the pictures and they are fascinated with the view of a detective’s life.28

  Even if they hadn’t gone to the pictures, I suspected women might have seen Maud as an attractive employer. She was fair to her staff, paying for telephones to be installed at their homes so she could summon them when needed or call early in the morning to tell them not to come in: ‘Then the day is their own; but their salary comes in at the end of the week just the same,’ she explained. ‘In that way we are able to make up for the terribly hard work we do at other times.’29 When things were slack in the office, they could read a book or knit or sew, as long as they were ready to act as soon as a call came in.

  As for pay, they could expect to start on around five pounds a week – a shop assistant might earn two pounds – but, as Maud pointed out, ‘This salary represents more than £5, really, as a detective lives for many weeks in each year either in hotels or private houses, entirely free of cost.’30

  To enjoy these perks, however, her staff had to pass a strict vetting and training programme. The majority of letters she received from potential recruits went straight in the bin. ‘Most of them are unsuitable for the work,’ she had written in 1913,31 and her opinion had not changed by 1924.

  Looking at the list of attributes she sought, it wasn’t surprising that few measured up to her standards. Anyone with a limp, lisp or other outstanding characteristic was rejected out of hand; redheads were directed towards the nearest hairdresser for a colour change. The remaining candidates had to demonstrate a natural ability and liking for the work as well as ‘great tact, great strength, great perseverance and, of course, courage.’32 Then there was intuition, patience, acting skills, the ability to make quick decisions and a willingness to work uncertain hours in all weathers – although whether all her female staff had also been to university, could speak four languages and were ‘as good at handling a revolver as a lipstick’, as one foreign newspaper reported in 1931, was more doubtful.33

  Should a woman – or man – meet these requirements, they were admitted for training. Maud said her own training had been a self-directed affair:

  For many months I set myself to study law, often attending the courts to watch the procedure, reading books by celebrated criminologists, learning languages, and dabbling in the art of disguise and make up.34

  Her own detectives, however, were offered more assistance – for a price. She charged a training fee, although this was returned minus expenses if things didn’t work out: ‘I give them a couple of weeks’ trial. Then, if I consider they are unsuitable or unfitted for the game, I frankly tell them so.’35 There was another cull at the end of the first month.36 The full probationary period lasted three, with Maud’s beady eye on their every move.

  ‘One of the tests I give a pupil is to tell her I shall be at a certain big store at a given time, on a given day,’ she explained in 1926. ‘She is told to describe exactly what I have done and where I have been before arriving there. In other words, to “shadow” me. If she reports accurately all my movements (of which I am perfectly well aware) it is a big point in her favour.’37

  Maud also placed great emphasis on observation skills and trained her recruits using methods similar to those employed by Scotland Yard.38 She would begin by pointing to a man in the street and asking her student to tell her of someone else with a similar nose or brow line. Faces came first, followed by the way people stood and moved. Each student was different, with some quick to recognize facial features, others mannerisms – Maud herself was drawn to mouths and teeth – but these skills could be expanded over time. ‘Whereas you might see one point,’ she explained, ‘because I am trained to it, and because I have certain attributes that have become highly developed, I can see 100 points.’39

  A trickier prospect was identifying people from their descriptions. She knew one man who had an intuitive gift for this, she said, but most people struggled:

  It is surprising how many people resemble each other in certain particulars. You may so often be told you cannot possibly mistake him: he turns his foot in, or he hunches one shoulder, or one eyebrow is shorter than another; and when you begin to look about you find there are ten people of the same height, size and general appearance who turn their foot in, or hunch a shoulder, or have one eyebrow shorter than another.

  ‘It is remarkable, too, how many people have doubles,’ she added.40

  Tell me about it, I thought.

  Two Edith Barbers, two Charles Lawrence Elliotts, and a shifting number of barristers and solicitors: there were altogether too many people in Maud’s family tree. In one of her articles about detective careers, she had muddied the water even further by adding another lawyer (her grandfather), removing the brothers she had mentioned to Basil Tozer in 1914, and introducing her mother for the first time:

  My grandfather and my uncles were lawyers … I had not thought of any special career for myself, perhaps because it wasn’t essential for me to work at all. My mother, who had studied medicine, wanted me to follow in her footsteps, but the notion didn’t appeal to me. I was very boyish in those days, although I had no brothers to back me up. In fact, I was always called ‘Jack’ by the family.41

  More lies, or more clues? I’d never known anyone to be so inconsistent.

  The only way forward was to ignore everything she’d ever said about her family and focus instead on the hard evidence available, such as where she and Harry had spent the night of the census, just before their wedding.

  The house in Staunton Street, Deptford, which belonged to Maud’s alleged grandparents, was a standard three-up, three-down terrace with creeping damp and soot-stained windows. On his map of London poverty in 1889, Charles Booth had coloured the street purple.42 In Booth’s cheerless world, purple was a middling place to dwell, not exactly comfortable, but not slovenly, either: the curtains got washed occasionally and the doorsteps scrubbed. This was where Robert Barber senior and his wife Mary had raised their five children – four sons and one daughter – after moving to London fro
m Norfolk thirty-five years earlier. Robert senior was, like Robert junior, a merchant seaman, so if there was a family of lawyers to be found, it didn’t now seem likely it would be on the paternal side.

  By the time of the 1901 census, the only one of Robert and Mary’s five children left at home was their forty-two-year-old spinster daughter Mary Ann, a ladies’ nurse who looked after new mothers and their babies in the weeks following birth. At the time, she was in bed herself, suffering from some unspecified illness. Apart from Harry and Edith, the only other occupants of the house that night were two lodgers and a fifteen-year-old girl called Alice, who was listed as another of Robert and Mary’s grandchildren.

  Looking at all the evidence, it occurred to me that there was a simple explanation for Edith’s presence in the house that night. Like most families at the time, the Barbers were keen on recycling names: Robert, Mary, Alfred and Elizabeth all appeared multiple times in their family tree. It is remarkable, too, how many people have doubles. I had a feeling that the name Edith Maria had also been used more than once.

  The theory I was forming didn’t involve Edith’s so-called father, Robert junior. At least, I hoped not, because my eyes were focused on his sister Mary Ann, the ladies’ nurse languishing on her sick bed in Staunton Street. My mother, who had studied medicine, wanted me to follow in her footsteps. Mary Ann had never married, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have any children.

  When a batch of birth certificates I had ordered arrived from the General Register Office my suspicions were confirmed:

  Name: Edith Maria Barber

  When and where born: Fifteenth September 1880, 2 Staunton Street

  Mother: Mary Ann Barber, a domestic servant