Mary Quintal

Mary Quintal (née Voon; born 1929) was an Assistant Superintendent of Police from 1961 to 1974 and a former badminton player. She was the first female police inspector in Singapore, and was inducted into the Singapore Women's Hall of Fame in 2014. Early life & badminton career Quintal was educated in Raffles Girls' School and initially aspired to be an interior decorator or a physical training instructor. When the police force first announced plans to recruit women, she decided to join the force, despite her mother's wish for her to study medicine instead. She won the Singapore Badminton Association mixed doubles title with Ong Poh Lim in 1956. Singapore Police Force Quintal was one of the first ten women selected to join the Singapore Police Force, undergoing training at the Thomson Road Police Training School. She joined the Singapore Police Force on 1 March 1949 as a constable, and was promoted to the rank of inspector six months later, becoming the first female inspector in Singapore. In 1950, she was chosen to go on a four-month trip to the United Kingdom to study police methods in Great Britain. She participated in the investigation of the murder of Lim Yew See in 1955. By 1959, she was the only one of the original ten women to have remained in the force, and commanded the Woman Police Constabulary.