South Yorkshire Times September 17, 1949

Mexborough’s First Police Patrol Woman

In the arrival this week of Policewoman Butler, the Mexborough section of the Doncaster West Riding Division gains a figure who for four and a half years has been familiar and respected in the City of Ripon.

Born at Peterborough, Miss Butler worked in a sub post-office and as a telephonist in an A,R.P, centre before embarking in 1944 on a police career. Her first posting was to Selby in the autumn of 1944.

This was Selby’s first experience of the feminine arm of the Law and when three months later she was transferred to Ripon, the city saw a policewoman patrolling its streets for the first time. Now, with her transfer to the Doncaster Division, she will introduce the women’s police force to Mexborough.

Policewoman Butler has done good work in Ripon. Among the juvenile element in particular. Where the city’s children have been getting out of hand and causing annoyance and damage, “Ask Miss Butler to have a walk round that way”  has been the common request.          Such action has usually been officially endorsed and the result has invariably been beneficial to everyone,-including the delinquents.

She has always made a point of getting to know her “clients!” Policewoman Butler has had letters of real appreciation from some young delinquents, thanking her for her help and advice and regretting only that they had not taken advantage of it earlier.

Brooking no slighting of authority Miss Butler is none the less a firm believer in the tactful approach to the adult offender—the parking motorist, for example—and believes that a great deal more can be accomplished by giving opportunity for the public’s co-operation than by “taking particulars” of every offender.

In the detection of theft she has shown an ability which gained her a Ripon City Bench commendation  and even in the more robust task in the detection of theft she has shown an ability which gained her a Ripon City Bench commendation and even in the more robust task of arresting a brawling “drunk” she and a policewoman colleague astonished their superiors, who met them with their culprit having covered three-quarters of the way to the station unaided.

But naturally it has been the women and children whom she and her like have been for most to help. Ripon people—grateful for her efficient service over four and a half years—part with Policewoman Butler with regret and she comes to Mexborough with their warm, commendation and their good wishes.