A special service of thanksgiving is being held at Westminster Abbey today to mark 100 years since women were first allowed to join the Metropolitan Police.
Today's event will echo a similar one on May 17, 1919, which was held to honour fallen police officers from World War One.
It was the first time female police officers wore their uniforms in public.
And a century later, today's Met police women will stand in replica 1919 uniforms on the Clive Steps in Westminister and pose for the same picture.
Some 2,000 people are set to attend the service today which will include a range of testimonies and readings by women officers of varying ranks and departments, including a recollection of the 1919 service written after it took place by Lilian Wyles, the Met's first woman in CID.
In 1919 women were never sworn into the force and there were just 21 women patrols.
Policewomen didn't have the power to make arrests and they were paid less than men.
Cressida Dick became the Met's first female Commissioner when she was appointed in 2017.
She said: 'One hundred years ago today, on 17 May 1919, Met Police women appeared in public for the first time at a special service at Westminster Abbey held to honour the losses of officers in the first world war.
'A century on, in 2019, I am delighted that Westminster Abbey will once again host a unique service and welcome on this occasion not just a handful, but thousands of Met police women, who will represent even more of their colleagues.'
Today's service at Westminster on the Clive Steps will mirror one from 100 years ago in 1919 which saw female police officers wear their uniform in public for the first time
Some 2,000 people are set to attend the service today which will include a range of testimonies and readings by women officers of varying ranks and departments, including a recollection of the 1919 service written after it took place by Lilian Wyles, the Met's first woman in CID
Campaigns for women to be accepted into the police force began in 1910 when Edith Tancred and Dorothy Peto began insisting on the need for female police officers. Pictured is a policewomen taking part in the first female police patrol and giving directions to a car driver in September 1929 in London
Ms Peto joined the National Union of Women Workers in 1914 and organised voluntary female patrols. She became the first female Superintendent at the Metropolitan Police and served between 1930 and 1946. Pictured are policewomen in London posing in their new uniforms in 1967
Women Police Volunteers was an organisation founded in 1914 by Nina Doyle and Margaret Damer Dawson. One of its volunteers was Edith Smith, who became the first female police officer who was given full power of arrest. Pictured is a Met policewoman pointing while she gives directions in London to a family of visitors from out of town in the 1920s
It wasn't until 1918 that women were allowed to apply to work for the Metropolitan Police. As part of the application requirements, candidates had to be at least 5'4. Pictured are members of the Women's Police Force arriving at Buckingham Palace to attend a party for war workers in July 1919
Women who had dependent young children were banned from applying for the force and the Met made it clear that no woman would ever be sworn in as a constable and that they would not get a pension. Pictured are three Met
