Kate Cocks
| Kate Cocks | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Fanny Kate Boadicea Cock 5 May 1875 East Moonta, South Australia |
| Died | 20 August 1954 (aged 79) North Adelaide, South Australia |
| Occupation | Police officer |
| Parent(s) | Anthony Cock and Elizabeth Cock (nee George) |
Kate Cocks (born Fanny Kate Boadicea Cocks on 5 May 1875, died 20 August 1954) was welfare worker and the state's first policewoman in South Australia. She is best known for her work with unmarried mothers and their babies. The Kate Cocks Memorial Babies Home named after her in honor of her work.
Kate Cocks was born Fanny Kate Boadicea Cocks in Moonta, South Australia. Her father was a miner and her mother was a school teacher. Cocks was home tutored after the family moved to a farm near Quorn further north in the state.
In 1900, Cocks returned to the Yorke Peninsula area to teach at a school in Thomas Plains for a year. After this, Cocks moved to the suburbs of Adelaide to teach at the Edwardstown Industrial School (1898-1949) of Edwardstown, which had opened on the site of the former Girls Reformatory on Naldera Street, Edwardstown. Cocks served as schoolmistress and sub-matron there.
In 1903, Cocks joined the State Children's Council, which had been formed in 1886 as part of the Destitute Persons Amendment Act, 1886 as a clerk and in 1906 was appointed the state's first probation officer for juvenile first offenders.
In 1915 Cocks was appointed as South Australia's first woman police constable. Her responsibilities included female offences around youth sexuality and alcoholism, prostitution, and solicitation.
After retirement in 1935, Kate Cocks worked with the Methodist Women's Home Mission Association to care for homeless girls, and she served as voluntary superintendent until 1951. In 1936 the Methodist Church purchased a home in the Brighton area to serve as a care facility for unmarried mothers and their newborn babies, and Cocks moved to the area in 1937 act as Superintendent.
The facility became known as the Kate Cocks Memorial Babies' Home in 1954. The Home was located in Wattle Street, Brighton now part of Hove. Prior to 1954, the facility was known as the Methodist Home for Babies and Unmarried Mothers. The facility provided health care services and housing for single young women and girls who were pregnant or who had recently given birth. The home also housed children in need of institutional care. An adoption service was run from the facility. Kate Cocks Memorial Babies' Home closed in 1976, and the Methodist Church developed the land into an aged care facility currently called Eldercare Oxford Retirement Village. The Kate Cocks name continued as a day care centre.
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