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Marion Sandover (Gloucestershire Police Archives)

The origins of women police officers lie in WW1 and the female ‘Canary Girl’ workers at the munitions factories.  Because the (mostly female) workers had to be searched before entering the explosives area in the factory to ensure they had no matches on them, the Women’s Voluntary Service contracted with the Minister of Munitions to train and supply women to undertake this task and also to police munitions works.  Marion Sandover, who originated from Suffolk, was duly trained and appointed to Quedgeley National Shell Filling Factory No.5.  In 1918, at the end of the war, she was transferred to Gloucestershire Constabulary with the number WPC1.  She enjoyed a long career, not retiring until 1948.