Women's Police Service

[3] Both Boyle and Damer Dawson had observed the trouble faced in London by Belgian and French refugees, particularly the danger of their being recruited for prostitution on arrival at railway stations.

The government agreed and from its foundation onwards the WPV's role was delimited to enforcing the public decency laws and supervising female workers such as munitionettes.

[5] While this side of their work was generally approved, Boyle was to become alarmed that her organisation and other similar initiatives were being used to support anti-female propaganda and to curtail women's civil liberties.

[5] In 1915, Dawson changed the name of WPV to the Women Police Service, took on Mary Sophia Allen as her second-in-command, and ended all links with the WFL.

[18][19][20] The first twenty-three women recruited for these Patrols were drawn exclusively from the NUWW's patrolwomen, as was their senior officer Sofia Stanley, though later intakes did include former WPS volunteers.

Damer Dawson requested to have all the WPS's volunteers made into official Met patrolwomen, but the Commissioner refused as he felt that it would cause friction because the women were too well educated.

[22] This ended in a token fine, a renaming of the force to the Women's Auxiliary Service (WAS), an alteration to its cap badge and an addition of scarlet shoulder straps, all taking effect in mid-May that year.

When asked in the House of Commons on 12 June 1940 if the government would close down WAS, Osbert Peake, Under-Secretary at the Home Office, stated, "It is extremely doubtful whether this so-called organisation has any corporate existence at the present time".