vans, and mortuary. Modernisation of education and training Rafter was a noted moderniser of the service. One of his first acts was to introduce educational classes for the rank-and-file. At first, only Birmingham police officers were eligible to attend, but Rafter soon opened the school to visiting officers, offering a combination of physical and mental education to prepare probationary constables for the rigours of police work. The curriculum included criminal law and procedure, police duties, arithmetic, English composition, dictation, gymnastics, swimming, drill, first aid, and practical tips for dealing with the public. Only with sustained training could officers perform their principal duty, which, as he liked to remind people, was 'the prevention of crime'. Potential recruits were introduced to this educational regime the moment they arrived for interview: all of the 5000 candidates personally interviewed by Rafter between 1899 and 1928 heard his lecture 'Advice to police officers'. As he noted in his evidence to the Royal Commission on Police Powers and Procedure in 1928, the selection of "proper candidates for the Police Service...is a duty that cannot be adequately discharged by subordinates". The Digbeth Police Training School, as it became known from 1913, was the leading educational institution for police officers in the country, and, when Rafter advocated establishing a national police school in 1918, he confidently urged the Home Office to use his school as a model of good practice. From 1918, he used his influence on the Chief Constables' Association to press for greater uniformity and professionalism in police training. With Rafter's encouragement, the rugby-playing assistant chief constable who was his heir apparent from 1918, Cecil Moriarty, wrote and revised a set of model instructions for police, which became a national standard, albeit an unofficial one. Women police Rafter was also one of the first chief constables to employ women in the service, first (and conventionally) as police matrons to look after female prisoners and juveniles, before recruiting female volunteers to patrol the city's parks and public spaces during the First World War. A women's police department was formed in June 1917 to deal with cases of indecent exposure, sexual assault, carnal knowledge, attempted suicide, obscene language, and shoplifting. A hostel for young women was opened on Newton Street in the following year with Rafter's sanction. In 1929 the Royal Commission on Police Powers and Procedure praised the force for pioneering the appointment of women police constables.