Sislin Fay Allen (20 March 1938 – 5 July 2021), known as Fay Allen, was a British and Jamaican police officer who was the first black woman police constable in the United Kingdom, serving in the

Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

from 1968 to 1972. She also worked for the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

Early life and family

Allen was born in Jamaica,''Fair Cop: A Century of British Policewomen''
BBC, 2015. and moved to the United Kingdom in 1961 or 1962. She lived in Thornton Heath, Croydon. She qualified as a

state registered nurse Nursing in the United Kingdom has a long history. The current form of nursing is often considered as beginning with Florence Nightingale who pioneered modern nursing. Nightingale initiated formal schools of nursing in the United Kingdom in the l ...

"Coloured woman P-c for Croydon", ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'', 27 April 1968. and worked at Queen's Hospital, Croydon, a geriatric facility in south London."Sislin Fay Allen Britain’s First Black Policewoman"
''Black History Month'', 25 August 2015. She was married to a fellow Jamaican immigrant and had two children.

Career

Allen had always been interested in the police and in 1968 saw a recruitment advertisement in the newspaper, applied, and was selected. The first black officer in the British police since the 19th century,

Norwell Roberts Norwell Lionel Roberts (né Gumbs; born 23 October 1946) is a British former police constable—the first black police officer to join London's Metropolitan Police. He eventually rose to the rank of Detective Sergeant. During his career, he wa ...

, had only joined the Metropolitan Police the previous year. "On the day I joined I nearly broke a leg trying to run away from reporters," she told an interviewer later. "I realised then that I was a history maker. But I didn't set out to make history; I just wanted a change of direction." After training at

Peel House Peel House is a former Metropolitan Police training school in Regency Street, Pimlico, London SW1. It was built in the year 1907, and is in a conservation area, but not a listed building, and Westminster City Council has identified it as being ...

for 13 weeks, she was posted to Fell Road police station in

Croydon Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an extensi ...

, where she lived, on 29 April 1968, aged 29. She experienced more prejudice from the black community than from her colleagues or from white people in Croydon, and was met largely with curiosity and considerable interest from the media, although the Metropolitan Police did receive some racist mail about her appointment. The threatening and abusive letters she received when she started working at Fell Road made her consider whether she wanted to remain in the force. After a year in Croydon, she was posted to the Missing Persons Bureau at

Scotland Yard Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London's ...

for a while before being transferred back to the beat at Norbury police station.

Later years

In 1972, she resigned from the Metropolitan Police to return to Jamaica with her family. There she joined the Jamaica Constabulary Force. Eventually, she returned to England; as of 2015, she lived in South London. In 2020, she was given a lifetime achievement award by the National Black Police Association. She died in Ocho Rios, Jamaica, in July 2021, aged 83. Her death was announced on 5 July.

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, Fay 1938 births 2021 deaths Jamaican emigrants to the United Kingdom Women Metropolitan Police officers Jamaican police officers Black British police officers Jamaican nurses British women nurses British nurses Metropolitan Police officers