A Game Sustained

115 Struggling through to the end: 1918 the conflict was an expansion of women’s cricket as part of more general changes in women’s place in wartime Britain. The growing shortage of manpower during the war led to a total of 1.7 million extra women entering paid employment during the war, taking jobs traditionally performed by men. Around one million were employed in munitions factories. Arising from these developments came greater recreational opportunities, in part, stimulated by demands from women themselves but also brought in by employers who increasingly saw the value for productivity of improved physical well-being. As a result, organised sport – particularly football, but also cricket – became part of the factory culture. In Hull, for example Reckitt’s Girls Cricket Club advertised for opponents to fill its match programme at the start of the 1915 season. Women providing nursing care for wounded soldiers were also drawn into the game, which was often used for rehabilitation purposes. Womens’ matches were played at Idle and Eccleshill and there was also interest in Pudsey. Eccleshill Cricket Club claimed that it had been the first club to introduce ladies’ cricket to the Bradford district, albeit not for its own sake but rather ‘with a view to helping the wounded soldiers’. The financial results of such matches were considered ‘remarkable’ and became a feature of the club. In 1917, in a strange mixture of support and condescension, J.J.Booth claimed that women were becoming more enthusiastic about cricket. He also suggested that women were having an influence on aspects of cricket culture, encouraging tea rather then beer drinking, and so were ‘perhaps unconsciously, effecting a revolution.’ Booth also praised Farsley Cricket Club for providing a separate room for women in its pavilion and suggested others should follow. Wartime matches involving women were used to raise charitable funds. In August 1917, a cricket match was played between King Cross and Halifax ladies at Thrum Hall Grounds, Halifax in front of 1,000 spectators. The highlight was an innings of 113 by a Miss Wild, a Luddenden Foot woman on vacation from Cambridge University, where