Lillian May Armfield

Lillian May Armfield ISM (3 December 1884 – 26 August 1971) was an Australian nurse and pioneering Sydney female police detective, one of the first women to serve in that role.

Lillian May Armfield was born in Mittagong, New South Wales, on 3 December 1884 to George Armfield and Elizabeth Armfield (née Wright). Her first job in 1907 was as a nurse at the Callan Park Hospital for the Insane in Callan Park, Sydney. She left that role for a pioneering position as a female police detective in the New South Wales Police Force in 1915.

For over thirty years, Armfield then served as a female police detective, mainly working in the localities of Surry Hills and Darlinghurst. At first a probationary special constable, Armfield was not provided with a uniform, or paid for overtime and ancillary expenses as her male colleagues were. Unlike her male colleagues, she also experienced discrimination in terms of recompense for injuries sustained in the line of duty and had no superannuation benefit rights at the end of her career.

During that long and distinguished career, Armfield confronted the darker side of Sydney's often violent criminal underworld, confronting murder, rape and human trafficking. She was a nemesis of female underworld ringleaders like Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh, associated with the razor gang violence of the 1920s and also served as a social worker, warning younger women of bullet wound injuries or razor slashing from associating with male criminals. She was a contemporary of legendary Sydney police officers Ray 'the blizzard' Blissett and Frank Farrell.

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