In 1915, an unmarried, 40-year-old woman by the name of Fanny Kate Boadicea Cocks was hand-picked for the role of South Australia’s first policewoman. A small number of others had taken up similar roles globally, amid growing fears for the morality of young women enjoying ever more independence in a rapidly changing world.
But Kate Cocks, as she called herself, was the first woman in the British Empire to enjoy the same salary as her male counterparts, and to receive the same powers of arrest. Asked if she wanted six additional policewomen in her tiny office in Adelaide’s Victoria Square, she replied: “No, give me one woman. I don’t even know what I am going to do yet.”
