Women's cricket

The earliest known reference to women playing cricket is a report in the Reading Mercury on Friday, 26 July 1745 when a match took place near Guildford, Surrey between teams called Bramley Maids and Hambleton Maids. The report said the ladies could play "as well as most men". On 5 August, the newspaper advertised a return match at Hambleton, near Godalming, the following day, but no report has been found. In 1797, the 3rd Duke of Dorset, John Frederick Sackville, who had himself been a noted cricketer, wrote in the Ladies' and Gentlemen's Magazine that ladies should play cricket as well as men. Infrequent mentions did occur in published sources until Victorian times when public games seemingly died out and women's cricket became a country house pastime, played in private but nevertheless very popular.

In 1887, the earliest known ladies' cricket club was founded at Nun Appleton, near Selby in Yorkshire. Known as the White Heather Club, it survived until 1957. By 1891, it had some fifty members. They had a uniform of a white blouse; a long white flannel skirt; a pink, white and green tie; and a boater hat.

In 1890, two ladies' teams were raised by a Mr Matthews in response to a press advertisement placed by an entrepreneurial group called the English Cricket and Athletic Association. The squad were named "The Original English Lady Cricketers" and split into two teams called the Reds and the Blues, who were the first professional women's teams in any sport. To ensure respectability, the women were chaperoned on their travels and played under pseudonyms. After the fashion of the old All England Eleven formed by William Clarke in 1845, the teams were itinerant, playing one-off matches throughout the country, often at first-class venues, and they drew large crowds. In one match at Easter, a match in Liverpool drew an attendance of 15,000. Perhaps surprisingly, the venture was well received by much of the media, although some specialist cricket magazines pointedly ignored it and there were the predictable expressions of disapproval which included comments about the supposed limitations of female anatomy. On the positive side, the Illustrated London News said that "women can, may and will do everything quite as well as men", and The Cricketers' Annual said that while women could not expect to challenge men on equal terms, there was no reason why they should not play. As it happens, the venture was a one-season wonder that ended abruptly after the promoters absconded with the profits. It is doubtful if the Original English Lady Cricketers actually helped the development of women's cricket as they were generally considered a novelty. After their demise, women's cricket became a solely amateur sport again.

Teams were raised during Edwardian times and some became clubs that survived the First World War. A key factor in the sport's development was its inclusion in the sports curriculum at many of the public schools for girls. Upon leaving school, these ladies desired to carry on playing and, in the 1920s, a campaign began for a national association. This gathered force in 1926 when Miss V. M. M. Cox formed a team to make a tour of the West Country. One of their destinations was the village of Colwall, Herefordshire, which is not far from Malvern. The tour was a great success and, on 4 October 1926, a meeting was held in London to discuss a proposal by Miss K. Doman "that a central association for women's cricket be formed". This was overwhelmingly supported and the Women's Cricket Association (WCA) was founded with Miss Cox as its first honorary secretary, Mrs N. Heron as chairwoman, and Miss J. Hatten as treasurer. These ladies became a formidable triumvirate and soon announced their determination to establish cricket as a regular game for women and to send a national team to Australia at an early date.

One of the earliest initiatives taken by the WCA was to hold an annual event called Women's Cricket Week at Colwall. The first event was in 1927 and, apart from the Second World War, it has been held every year since then (the next one is in the week 2–8 August 2020). Colwall has been nicknamed the "cradle of women's cricket" because it has massively promoted the sport. On 17 July 1929, the first Representative Game was held at the Foxgrove Road venue in Beckenham between teams called London & District and the Rest of England, which was well attended by the media and reported in mostly positive terms. It was a single innings match which ended in a draw after The Rest scored 215 and London & District replied with 176 for nine. The Representative Game became an annual fixture featuring 22 of the best players in the country.

Bibliography

• Buckley, G. B.: Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket. Cotterell (1935).
• McCrone, Kathleen E.: Playing the Game: Sports and the Physical Emancipation of English Women, 1870–1914. University Press of Kentucky (1988).
• Swanton, E. W. (editor): Barclays World of Cricket, 3rd edition. Willow Books (1986).
• Waghorn, H. T.: Cricket Scores, Notes, etc. (1730–1773). Blackwood (1899).