Role: Women’s Police Volunteer
Born in Kent, Nina Boyle was a prominent figure in the Women’s suffrage movement, Nina had been arrested multiple times. Having dealt with the police and criminal justice system before Boyle started to campaign for women to become Special Constables. The campaign coincided with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Alongside Margaret Damer Dawson, Boyle established the first voluntary women’s police service, known as the Women’s Police Volunteers. However, in February 1915, Boyle split from the organisation over the use of the WPV to enforce a curfew on women of so-called ‘loose character’ near a service base in Grantham.
In late 1916, Boyle went on hospital duty in Macedonia and Serbia and the Balkans which earned her the Samaritan Order of Serbia.
Boyle died on 4 March 1943, aged 77 in a nursing home at 99 Cromwell Road, London. She was cremated at Golders Green on 9 March.
For some years after her death, Bedford College offered a Nina Boyle Memorial Prize for the best essay on a subject connected with the position and work of women. It is now offered by Royal Holloway, University of London to a student in either the History or Social Policy departments.
