Louise A. Jackson is Reader in Modern Social History at the University of Edinburgh and has published extensively on the history of gender, crime and policing.
She is the author of Child Sexual Abuse in Victorian England (Routledge, 2000), Women Police: Gender, Welfare and Surveillance in the Twentieth Century (Manchester University Press, 2006) and (with Shani D’Cruze) Women, Crime and Justice in England Since 1660 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
Her latest book Policing Youth: Britain 1945-70 will be published in June 2014 (Manchester University Press).
The First World War changed women’s lives in profound ways as they entered occupations previously reserved for men. Mrs Edith Smith was one such pioneer. She was the first woman to be sworn in as a police constable with official …