"London's Lady Detective"
Britain's first female private detective Maud West was born Edith Barber on September 15, 1880, in Deptford, London. Her mother Mary Ann was a servant and her father's identity remains a mystery.
Edith married Harry Elliott in 1901 and they had six children and 49 years of marriage.
Edith Elliott disregarded the commonly accepted view that detective work was man's work. She established her detective agency at Albion House, 59 New Oxford Street, London in 1905.
She allowed her male competitors to question her abilities, not because she felt subordinate but because she didn't care what they believed. She sensed that she was a capable detective and her determination knew no limits. She carefully guarded her illegitimacy to preserve her reputation.
"London's Lady Detective" was an ordinary looking, businesslike, sensible-suit-wearing, single-string-of-pearls kind of woman. Maud was imaginative and accomplished at self-publicity, becoming a celebrity in the 1920s and writing about her cases in popular newspapers.
International Sleuth and Mistress of Disguise
The majority of Maud's cases were in Britain before she accepted work in mainland Europe, the United States, and South Africa. Divorce and adultery cases, forgery, blackmail, jewel thefts, and missing persons investigations occupied her time.
Maud West was a detective of many disguises, including her array of male personas, from businessmen to gamblers and a Charlie Chaplin-esque figure. She claimed that she could walk into gentlemen's clubs unchallenged.
Maud masqueraded as a maid in a country house, a drunk lady in a bar, a fortune teller, an old lady, a district nurse, and countless other characters during her career. It was a sign of the times that a female, particularly a maid, was almost invisible to the wealthy, so she was able to work without interference.
Conversely, by the mid-1920s, Maud West was handing out photographs of herself in her multiple disguises.
Maud West's Adventures: Fact or Fiction?
She wrote articles about her cases for newspapers like Pearson's Weekly in the 1920s. These were enthralling and not entirely accurate. Some tales would have reminded readers of the latest Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers novel, and Maud wasn't shy about using tropes. Her articles gave people a fascinating story to lose themselves in and they kept her in the public eye. She didn't take her stories too seriously and perhaps she wondered why anyone else did.
She claimed that in just one week in 1915 she travelled through war-torn Russia, Germany, Belgium and France while on an investigation. During other cases Maud was apparently shot at by gangsters in Paris, and she unmasked an enemy spy and almost fell victim to Brazilian drug barons.
At her New Oxford Street office. she claimed that she wasn't cowed by a far-from-gracious blackmailer who declared himself "... fortunate in finding you alone, Miss West." She calmly took a revolver from her desk and replied: "Oh, not quite alone." He was duly respectful of the weapon, if not the lady detective.
Maud related how she was invited to a seance, where she shot at a ghost to prove whether it was real or fake. “This experience will be the most remarkable in the whole of my career ..."
Maud West Retires in 1939
Alongside her investigative work, Maud was a councillor for the Municipal Reform Party between 1934–1937. The party aligned itself with the Conservatives.
Maud West retired during the early days of World War II. For over three decades, she successfully adapted to the times in which she operated. She began her agency as an Edwardian wife and mother, enduring the First World War and the social and financial disquiet of the inter-war years.
She helped to make businesswomen and female detectives more prominent. Maud died on 13th March 1964; she survived her husband Harry by 14 years.
Historian Susannah Stapleton wrote The Adventures of Maud West, Picador, 2019, and this book sheds much needed light on a forgotten woman. It's odd that Maud West sadly faded into anonymity while her American counterpart Kate Warne became celebrated.
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