South Yorkshire Police pays tribute to a pioneering Sheffield female officer after her death

Winifred Bishop was one of the first two members of the Women’s Police Auxiliary in Doncaster to be accepted to become a Police Constable, before she became the first female Superintendent in South Yorkshire Police in a career marked with the British Empire Medal for her services to policing.

South Yorkshire Police respectfully waited until Miss Bishop’s relatives could be traced before releasing a tribute to the pioneering officer whose funeral had been attended by force representatives in August, 2019 following her death at the age of 99.

Ms Bishop’s 75-year-old second cousin Ann Marsden, of Intake, Doncaster, laughed when she saw SYP referring to the former top cop as Winnie.

Ms Marsden said: “I got into trouble once for calling her Winnie,” and she added, “I got a clip around the ear. We were only allowed to call her Cousin Winifred.”

Ann Marsden was raised by her grandparents, with her grandfather being Miss Bishop’s uncle on her mother’s side, and Ann’s mother, Violet, was Miss Bishop’s cousin.

Ms Marsden said: “She was very formidable. She scared me to death.”

She added: “She was very good looking, very pretty, but very fearsome. Cousin Winifred moved to Sheffield from Doncaster when I was 10, but before then I remember the first time we went round to her family’s for tea - it was very strict. Adults were served butter while the children got margarine. While the adults sat to eat, the children stood. It was very much ‘children should be seen and not heard’. Cousin Winifred definitely picked up that discipline from her mum.”

Having been born on January 5, 1920, in Doncaster, Winifred Bishop spent her early life growing up there with her parents Annie and builder Henry Bishop.

Her first career was as a nurse, but policing was to be her true vocation. She first joined the Women’s Police Auxiliary in Doncaster. In those early days it was so different, with women not having the full powers of PCs like the power of arrest.

Then in 1946, Miss Bishop was one of the first two members of the Women’s Police Auxiliary who were accepted as a full PC in Doncaster.

Little is known about PC Bishop’s early career, given the absence of written records and the death of many of her contemporaries in the years since she retired. We do know she received a Chief Constable’s Commendation for dealing with the exploitation of women in brothels.

After serving as a PC, Miss Bishop was promoted to Sergeant in Doncaster. Then in 1956 she accepted promotion to the rank of Inspector on transfer to Sheffield City Police.

Further promotions followed, placing her as the officer in charge of the policewomen’s department in Sheffield City Police, which then became Sheffield and Rotherham Constabulary and, latterly, South Yorkshire Police in 1974.

She would ensure a tape measure was always to hand, to check that a woman police officer’s skirt was an appropriate length from ground to the hem. She also liked to make sure lace-up shoes only had four lace holes, not three or five.

It is believed she had reached the rank of Chief Inspector when she received her British Empire Medal. She also received a Long Service Award while she was Chief Inspector.

Miss Bishop was eventually promoted to Superintendent, the first female officer in South Yorkshire Police to achieve this rank, and after her retirement in 1976, she continued to live in Sheffield.

In 2013, she moved herself into a care home as her health and vision deteriorated. She maintained her high standards there too and the staff respected her wish to be called Miss Bishop, unless they were held in true affection and then they were allowed to call her Miss B.

Ms Marsden said: “I wrote to Cousin Winifred in later years on behalf of my grandmother when her eyesight was failing,” and she added, “Cousin Winifred lived on Abbeydale Road at that point. She named her house, and it was pronounced ‘Crim-eh-cur’. But the spelling was Crimecar. I think that was a personal joke from her.”

Ann also worked with South Yorkshire Police – joining as a youngster and working on the radios with the formerly named Doncaster Borough Police where she met her ex-husband, who worked in the Criminal Records Office.

She said: “I initially wanted to be a police officer too and wrote to Cousin Winifred asking for her thoughts and advice. She asked me how tall I was. I told her 5ft 3ins, and she simply replied ‘no, no, no, that’s way too short’.

“She was supposed to be a fantastic officer, who worked at what was a difficult time for women police officers. Women took a lot of what was then called ‘banter’, and we gave it back too. Then, policewomen weren’t allowed to work past 2am while on nights.”

Ms Marsden, who has also lived in Hertfordshire and York for three decades before returning to her Doncaster roots, is still full of admiration for her Cousin Winifred.

She said: “I’m very proud of her. She didn’t talk about it much. She was quite distant about it. But we know what it meant to her, and what it meant to us too.”