 After her education at Thanet Hall, Margate, and a Paris finishing school, Wyles broke off the legal studies she had begun at her father's instigation, to serve as a hospital nurse in the First World War.Lilian Wyles started her police career in February 1919 as one of three sergeants in the Metropolitan Women Police Patrols, covering Central London and the East End but without the power of arrest.The patrols met with scorn from male policemen and from members of the public, "Daunted at first, Wyles became accustomed to her visibility as another London sight, 'along with the Tower and Westminster Abbey'.