My review of Sister Sleuths – Female Detectives in Britain
By Nell Darby (Pen and Sword, 2021)
This review first appeared in Who Do You Think You Are? magazine
Review by Ruth A Symes
An impressive forensic examination of the hitherto hidden history of female detectives working outside formal police structures, Sister Sleuths looks at all kinds of women investigators, from neighbourhood snoops, through paid sleuths (who worked part-time alongside other complementary employments such as acting and spiritualism), to the full-time doyennes of detective agencies.
The story interweaves with the more familiar history
of women’s increasing emancipation in the last two hundred and fifty years,
glancing off – amongst other things – the rise of the New Woman of the 1880s
and 1890s, women’s work in World War One, and the women’s suffrage movement. Each
of these played a distinctive part in encouraging and sustaining female detective
activity. Family history researchers will enjoy lively evidence culled from
newspapers and court records as well as certificates, censuses and the 1939
Register.
Feminine talents (such as the ability easily to gain
confidences) were considered to make women particularly suitable for investigative
work, but the numerous proto-Miss Marples also embraced adventure, and excitement,
and demonstrated physical and intellectual prowess that easily rivalled that of
their male counterparts. Far from simply prurient curtain-twitchers, these
talented women were undoubtedly important to the preservation of the social
order in many British cities and towns.
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