Information from a Research Project led by Nigel Compton.

 

Name: Lilian Grace Malpas
DoB: 30 June 1883
Place of birth: Bemerton, Wilton, Wiltshire
Parents: Henry & Charlotte Eliza (nee Tucker)
Parental Home: 1 Finchley Villas, Fisherton Anger, Salisbury, Wiltshire
Siblings: Theodore Fitz Henry (1871-1913), Alice Muriel (1873-1944) Josephine Evelyn (1873-1953), Ernest Edgar Kinloch (1876-1968) Julian Guy MacDonald (1877-1958), James Herbert (1878-1954) David (1879-1917), Reginald Arthur (1882-1917) see notes
Spouse: Never married
Date of Wedding: Not applicable
Children: Not applicable
Marital home(s) : Not applicable
Employment: Music Mistress
1911 Census: Welsh School, Ashford, Middlesex
Date of death: 7 June 1953
Location: Westbury on Trym, Bristol Living at St. Monica Home of Rest, Westbury on Trym

Gretna details
Name: Lilian Grace Malpus
Clock No
Date joining: Not confirmed
Date leaving: 1918-1919
Addresses: Women Police Barracks, Gretna
Rank on start: PC
Promotion: Sergeant
Career after: Partner in Luncheon & Tearooms
1921 Census : 1 Church Street, Uckfield, Sussex

Addresses after Gretna:
1921 – 1 Church Street, Uckfield
1939 – Lamorna, St Mary’s Bay, New Romney, Kent

Additional information

Lilian was born into the large family of Henry Malpas, who had married Charlotte Tucker in 1871 when she was only 22 and he was over 50. By then he had already fathered 12 children with his previous wife who had died in 1869. Charlotte and Henry had a further 9 children. Of the male children many followed Henry into the clergy. By 1901 Lilian was at college in Hove, studying to become a music teacher. After graduating she secured employment and is shown on the 1911 as a music mistress at the Welsh Girls School, Ashford, Middlesex. Why she joined the Women Police Service or when she saw duty at Gretna has not been found, but her sister Alice was at Gretna in 1917 serving as a police officer. Lilian, whilst at Gretna met Lucy Saunders who was also, a trained music teacher but neither appears to have returned to the teaching profession after the war. Indeed, by the 1921 census, the two had set up in business running a luncheon & tea room in Uckfield, Sussex very close to where two other Gretna police officers were operating a market garden. By 1939 Lilian & Lucy were living on the coast in Kent. Lilian at a later date moved into the same rest home her sister Alice had been living in before she passed away in 1944.Lilian herself died in 1953

Sources Consulted

Source
Item consulted
Ancestry UK
English/ Welsh Census 1891, 1901,

1911, 1921, 1939 registration

Census, electoral registers

Births, Marriages, Deaths, Burial/ Cemetery records

Immigration and travel
British Newspaper Archive
Local, National & Scottish Newspapers
National Archives Kew
Ministry of Munitions & Women Police Service
National Archives Edinburgh
Gretna Police Area records
Devils Porridge Museum Archives
Valuation Roll for Gretna

Electoral Register 1918-1919
Dumfries Archives
Police & Court records
Scotlandspeople
Births, Marriages, Deaths

Valuation Roll for Gretna
Court, prison and legal records
Bow Street Court and Holloway Prison
Metropolitan Police Heritage Centre
Early members of Metropolitan Police Patrol