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Women That Left Their Mark Throughout History

Khalid Elhassan August 4, 2020 34 min

37. Beating a Crazed Drug Dealer With a Handbag

May Smith, alias Botany May. Sydney Living Museums

Sydney police’s refusal to issue weapons to female officers should have been a serious handicap to Lillian Armfield. Especially considering that she routinely came in contact with dangerous and violent criminals, who had no respect for the police uniform – which Lillian had not been issued, anyhow – or police in general.

In 1929, an infamous drug dealer named May Smith, AKA Botany May, grew livid at Lillian Armfield’s interference with her trade. So the enraged drug dealer grabbed a red hot iron, and attacked the policewoman. Lillian’s only weapon was her handbag, but it was enough: she used it to beat back her attacker. Smith was arrested, tried, convicted, and received a stint behind bars with hard labor.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.