25th July, 2023 in True Crime, Women in History

Walking you through ‘Private Inquiries’: The secret history of female sleuths

By Caitlin Davies

The female private detective has been a staple of popular culture for over 150 years. But what about the real-life women behind the fictional tales?

Women like Victorian sleuth Antonia Moser, Annette Kerner, the ‘Mrs Sherlock Holmes’ of Baker Street, and Kate Easton, ‘London’s Leading Woman.’

Author of Private Inquiries, Caitlin Davies takes us on a walking tour through London, featuring real-life locations from the book, and telling us about some of the real-life female sleuths who lived and worked in the capital.

No. 37 and 38 the Strand, WC2N 5HY

In 1905, ‘Detective Expert’ Antonia Moser became one of the first women in Britain to open her own detective agency, offering ‘Consultations free. Prompt, secret, and reliable’.

Continue east along the Strand, Southampton Street is a few minutes’ walk away on the left.

31 Southampton Street, WC2E 7HG

Antonia initially became a private detective in 1888, when she applied for a job at Moser’s Detective Agency, run by ex-CID inspector Maurice Moser. The couple soon became lovers and business partners.

Continue along the Strand until it turns into Fleet Street, just under a mile.

119 Fleet Street, EC4A 2BH

Elizabeth Joyes, a police searcher, lived at a City of London police station here in the 1850s, when she was sent undercover to catch a railway thief. The culprit was furious to be apprehended by a ‘woman special detector’.

Head north towards Holborn, about half a mile.

317 High Holborn, WC1V 7BN

In 1909, Antonia Moser opened another kind of detective office, the Women’s Business and Legal Agency. She advertised her services in the suffragette newspaper The Vote and was still working as an investigator in 1914.

Cross to the other side of High Holborn.

10 Warwick-Court, WC1R 5DH

Kate Easton, ‘London’s Leading Woman Detective’, ran her agency just a stone’s throw from Antonia’s offices. But unlike her rival, Kate carried a gun.

Head west towards Tottenham Court Road, around half a mile.

241 Shaftesbury Avenue, WC2H 8EH

Kate Easton originally opened an agency here in 1905, following her involvement in a scandalous divorce case at the High Court of Justice in Ireland. She would continue in detective work until World War One.

Cross onto New Oxford Street.

Albion House, No. 59 New Oxford Street, WC1A 1EU

Maud West, London’s most famous female sleuth in the 1920s, was based around the corner from Kate Easton. She opened her agency here in 1909 – ‘Are you worried? If so, consult me!? – and only retired in the late 1930s.

Head northwest towards Regent’s Park, nearly two miles.

221b Baker Street, NW1 6XE

Sherlock Holmes’ fictional address and home to the Sherlock Holmes Museum, which is actually situated at 237–41 Baker Street.

No. 231 Baker Street, NW1 6XE

Annette Kerner, the self-styled Mrs Sherlock Holmes, opened her Mayfair Detective Agency here in September 1946. She was the first British female sleuth to publish a memoir. Today her old office is home to the London Beatles Store.

Walk south and cross over the Marylebone Road.

No. 130 Baker Street, W1U 6UA

In 1927, ex-Met police officer Charles Kersey launched a College for Feminine Undergraduates of Crime Investigation. Students included shop assistants, secretaries, clerks, hotel managers and ‘ladies of title and wealth’. They learned ju-jutsu, shadowing, how to handle shoplifters, and the ‘death grip’.

Head southeast towards Leicester Square, a mile and a half.

No. 120 Wardour Street, W1F 0TY

Annette Kerner lived here as a child and according to her memoir, her wealthy relatives once owned half the street. She allegedly started her career at the age of 17, when she was recruited by Special Branch as an ‘espionage agent’ in Switzerland.

End the walk by heading south towards Charing Cross, just under a mile.

10 Northumberland St, WC2N 5DB

The Sherlock Holmes pub, originally a small hotel which featured in The Adventure of the Nobel Bachelor. Upstairs is a recreation of Sherlock’s Baker Street flat, put together for the Festival of Britain in 1951. As yet, there is nothing to mark the existence of Sherlock’s real-life female counterparts, nor the trailblazing women who followed in their footsteps.