Role: Women’s Police Volunteers
Born in Cardiff Mary Allen was a British political activist known for her defence of women’s rights in the 1910–1920s and later involvement with British fascism.
Allen joined Emmeline Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union, becoming an organiser in the South West, and later in Edinburgh. She was imprisoned three times in 1909 for smashing windows, including at the Inland Revenue and Liberal Club in Bristol and at the Home Office, twice went on hunger-strike, and was force-fed on the last occasion, for which she was awarded a Hunger Strike Medal ‘ for Valour’ by Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence. At the outbreak of the First World War, Allen looked for active roles to help with the war effort and joined Nina Boyle’s Women’s Police Volunteers. The organisation was renamed the Women’s Police Service in 1915. They saw their role as mainly dealing with women and children and rescuing women from “vice” (prostitution) and ‘white slavery’. Allen served at Grantham and Kingston upon Hull, overseeing the morals of women in the vicinity of army barracks. She went on to police munitions factories which employed large numbers of women. She also worked in London, where ‘khaki fever’ was perceived as a problem. Child welfare work led the WPS to set up a benevolent department and a home for mothers and babies. Allen was awarded the OBE for services during the War.
