ABSTRACT
Edwardian feminists and child welfare groups had been united in their criticism of criminal justice in Britain as a system run exclusively by men. If a young woman of fifteen alleged assault by a man, she would face medical examination by a male surgeon, questioning by a male policeman and, if the case went to trial, she would find herself surrounded by male lawyers, judges and jurors. In cases involving ‘indecency’, female spectators would be asked to leave the court to preserve their ‘modesty’; the young woman herself would be left to give evidence of an intimate and personal character to a room of male professionals. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) protested in 1913 that ‘she should always be accompanied by a woman, one who has had a wide experience of human nature and is possessed of much human sympathy’.1 The W omen’s Freedom League (WFL), a suffrage organisation, ran a vociferous campaign in the pages of The Vote, calling for women magistrates, women jurors and women police.2
