Kate Cocks

Fanny Kate Boadicea Cocks (1875-1954), policewoman and welfare worker, was born on 5 May l875 at Moonta, South Australia, eldest child of Elizabeth (born George), schoolteacher, and Anthony Cocks, a miner. In 1885 the family moved to a farm near Quorn. Kate was educated at home; she taught for a year at Thomas Plains and in 1902 became schoolmistress and sub-matron at the Industrial School, Edwardstown.

In 1903 she was employed as a clerk in the State Children's Department, where she was influenced by Catherine Spence (q.v.). In 1906, anxious to prove that women could deal with vagrant boys, Cocks became the State's first probation officer for juvenile first offenders. She believed prevention was better than prosecution and her work lessened the number of children on parole who were placed in institutions.

In December 1915 Cocks was appointed the State's first woman police constable, with particular responsibility for female offenders in the areas of adolescent sexuality and alcoholism, and for social welfare work with women and children. She and her assistant had equal powers with her male colleagues with whom she worked easily; she won respect and obedience from juniors in the plain clothes women's branch, which she headed. Kate Cocks combined stern efficiency with generous advice and help to needy women. Her originality, insight and kindness, especially in the depression, led to a wealth of legends. Moral but not censorious, she never used a baton nor carried a revolver. She saw the equality of the sexes as 'a just conclusion', but believed in the sacredness of child-rearing. Her staff had to take a first-aid course which emphasised maternity care. Although slight and spare she was proficient in ju-jitsu, and once helped a woman whose husband beat her, by tutoring her in self-defence. She was a justice of the peace and in 1935 was appointed MBE.

In 1935 Cocks retired to nurse her dying mother. Her speech in April 1935 on the problem of homeless girls persuaded the Methodist Women's Home Mission Association to rent a cottage behind her home, and in 1936 to buy a property at Brighton as a refuge for unmarried mothers and their babies, and other infants needing care. Cocks became voluntary superintendent of the Methodist Women's Welfare Department, serving until 1951. She found fulfilment in this work, moving to Brighton in 1937 to superintend the home. Her intellectual and organisational ability has been obscured in some of the stories of her kindness and strong religious faith. She died on 20 August 1954, leaving her home and estate to her Church and its Home for Babies, later renamed the Kate Cocks Babies' Home.

Marie Mune