Who were the forgotten pioneers of professional women's cricket?
BY Giles Wilcock
24th Apr 2024 Sport
4 min read
In his new book Forgotten Pioneers, Giles
Wilcock tells the extraordinary tale of the world’s first professional women
cricket players
On 19 July 1890, Turf Moor—usually the home of Burnley
Football Club—hosted an event which would have been unthinkable 12 months
earlier but which had become almost commonplace. Around 5,000 spectators had
paid upwards of 6d (pence) to watch an exhibition match between two teams of
professional women cricketers. The two teams, the “Reds” and the “Blues”, were
collectively known as the Original English Lady Cricketers (OELC).
"In 1890, around 5,000 watched a match between two teams of professional women cricketers "
Throughout the summer of 1890, the teams had been touring
Britain, captivating audiences with their performances and generating
substantial publicity. While women’s cricket was not unheard of at the time,
this experimental team had no precedent. People simply did not pay to watch
women—who had a carefully defined and restricted role in Victorian Britain—play
cricket, nor any other sport. And the more high-minded members of society
deeply disapproved of professionalism in sport; for women to be paid for
playing cricket was scandalous.
Origins of women’s cricket
In the autumn of 1889, Walter Bosanquet and Edward Michell
between them created the idea that evolved over the following months into the
first professional women’s cricket team in the world.
By late 1889, advertising had begun to appear in newspapers
and early in 1890 the organisation that came to be called the Original English
Lady Cricketers was attracting a lot of attention.
Women’s cricket in the 19th century
Not only cricket but women’s sport in general grew in
popularity towards the end of the 19th century. However, men constantly—often
mockingly—dismissed the notion that women could ever be good at sport, and
eyebrows would have been raised at any participant taking matters too
seriously.
There was also a hierarchy of respectability: cricket,
tennis and hockey were reasonably acceptable, but athletics was questionable
among the upper and middle classes. Such an attitude might explain why
Bosanquet would have had reservations about some of the initial plans
advertised and why the focus switched to the far more acceptable sport of
cricket.
Recruitment
Around 40 women played at least once for the OELC in 1890.
Although we can identify many of them, some players remain nothing more than a
name on a scorecard. Only a handful can be traced confidently enough to give a
reasonable picture of their lives. This makes it a challenge to understand why,
or indeed how, they came to play for the OELC.
"Only a handful can be traced confidently enough to give a reasonable picture of their lives"
But if the women rarely spoke for themselves, their manager
was more than happy to talk on their behalf. In an 1890 interview Michell
invented backgrounds for his players. By this stage, he had a clear picture what
he wanted to present to the public and therefore made some grand claims on
their behalf. According to Michell, the “girls” were of a “superior class”: two
were daughters of “West End physicians”, two were daughters of dentists and two
were daughters of an architect. He stated: “It is of vast importance to us that
the respectability of the girls should be above suspicion, because a good deal
of their work will be to play in private matches among the gentry”.
In reality, none came from the “superior” background
advertised by Michell. Most of the women were working class and some lived in
obvious poverty.
Wages
Cricket offered a surprisingly good salary for women players. Credit: London, J. Bowden
While we cannot be certain—not least because they never
discussed the issue publicly—it was likely the prospect of a good salary that
convinced the majority to pursue an unlikely career in cricket. The initial
contracts were for two-year engagements, although many of the first recruits
dropped out after less than a year and the OELC folded before the contracts
could be fulfilled.
There is no question that the wage was generous. The maximum
would probably have been around £50, although most players would presumably
have received a lower amount. This was a surprisingly good salary, although it
did not quite match what was available in men’s cricket.
Challenges
A possible explanation for the high turnover of players is
the heavy workload demanded of the cricketers. Between April and October 1890,
they appeared in around 80 exhibition matches—over 100 playing days—across the
length and breadth of Britain. A comparison with male professional cricketers
is revealing.
Both the OELC and their male counterparts generally played
six days of cricket each week. For the men this meant two matches but for the
women—who mostly played a combination of one- and two-day games—it was often
three, involving a greater amount of travel.
"Between April and October 1890, they appeared in around 80 exhibition matches—over 100 playing days across Britain"
And for any professional cricketer, it was travel which made
the lifestyle so exhausting: an endless succession of railway stations, trains,
long journeys and nights in unfamiliar hotel rooms or other lodgings.
Perhaps the only way in which the lives of the women were
easier was in the hours on the field: their games usually began at 2pm and
ended at 6.30pm, whereas men played from 11am until 6.30pm. But the women also
had to perform at theatres in the evening, which more than offset the shorter
cricketing day. The men’s season was also briefer; their last game was in
mid-September but the women played for another month, an unusually late finish.
Extracted from Forgotten Pioneers: The Story of
the Original English Lady Cricketers (Pitch Publishing) by Giles Wilcock
Banner: The Original English Lady Cricketers' from en:James Lillywhite's Cricketers' Annual for 1890 (Nigej)
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