Dorothy Lawrence Dorothy Lawrence ( 4 October 1896 – 1964 ) was an English reporter who secretly posed as a man to become a soldier during the First World War . Biography . Lawrence was born in Hendon , A suburb of The Borough of Barnet . The second daughter of Thomas Hartshorn Lawrence , a drainage contractor , and his wife , Mary Jane Beddall . In 1914 , at the start of the war and aged 19 , Dorothy was living in Paris and had a desire to be a war reporter on the front lines , but was unable to get employment because she was a woman , and it was nearly impossible for even male reporters to get to the front line at that time . She recorded in a later autobiography " I ' ll see what an ordinary English girl , without credentials or money can accomplish . " She befriended two English soldiers and cotton , and her friends taught her to drill and march . She persuaded two Scottish military policemen to cut her hair military style and then dyed her skin using diluted furniture polish to give it a bronzed color . With forged identity papers as Private Denis Smith of the 1st Bn , Leicestershire Regiment she headed for the front lines , eventually arriving at the Somme by bicycle . A Lancashire coalminer named Tom Dunn befriended Dorothy and found her work as a Sapper with the British Expeditionary Force tunnelling company , a mine - laying company within of the front line , where she was constantly under fire . He found her an abandoned cottage in Senlis Forest to sleep in , and she returned to it each night after laying mines by day . The toll of the job , and of hiding her true identity , soon gave her a case of constant chills and rheumatism . She was concerned that if she was killed her true gender would be discovered and the men who had befriended her would be in danger . After 10 days of service she presented herself to the commanding sergeant , who promptly placed her under military arrest . She was taken to the British Expeditionary Force headquarters and interrogated as a spy and declared a prisoner of war . From there she was taken cross country by horse to Calais where her interrogation occupied the time of six generals and approximately twenty other officers . She was ignorant of the term " camp follower " ( prostitute ) and she later recalled " We talked steadily at cross purposes . On my side I had not been informed what the term meant , and on their side they continued unaware that I remained ignorant ! So I often appeared to be telling lies . " From Calais she was taken to Saint - Omer and further interrogated . The Army was embarrassed that a woman had breached security and was fearful of more women taking on male roles during the war if her story got out . She was then taken to the Convent de Bon Pasteur where she swore not to write about her experiences and signed an affidavit to that effect , or she would be sent to jail . She was then sent back to London . Back in London she was unable to write of her experiences , which had been her original intent . She later said , " in making that promise I sacrificed the chance of earning by newspaper articles written on this escapade , as a girl compelled to earn her livelihood . " After the war ended she wrote of her experiences , but it was censored by the War Office and not fully published until many years later when discovered by a historian in the archives . Her story became part of an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum on women at war . In 1919 , she moved to Canonbury , Islington , but after claiming she had been raped by her church guardian , she was institutionalised as insane in 1925 . She died at Friern Hospital ( formerly Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum ) in 1964 . Very little is known about her life after 1919 . References . Bibliography