Cricket Witness No 4 - Women at the WIcket

130 Government funding and support One of the top domestic priorities for interwar governments was improving the health and welfare of the nation. Demand for government intervention in this area had been growing prior to the First World War, and with almost two million permanently disabled men returning home by the end of 1918, fears over the nation’s stability and its duty to the war wounded dominated political debates. Some perfunctory measures such as the National Insurance Act of 1911 and the formation of a Ministry of Health in 1919 went some way to filling this gap, but as many of these welfare provisions provided only for the permanently-employed, they excluded millions of women. It was not until 1925 that widows’ pensions were introduced, and family allowances were resolutely rejected. 17 Efforts to raise the health of children had led to a reduction of infant mortality, but without a corresponding drop in maternal mortality. Between 1923 and 1933 this latter figure actually rose by 22%, and the main cause of poor health, poverty, was not addressed (nor admitted until 1938) by successive governments. Left-wing social reformers such as Margery Spring Rice warned that the government’s lack of provision for basic human necessities undermined democracy just as the shadow of dictatorship cast by continental Europe grew stronger. Meanwhile, as the ‘hungry thirties’ continued to sustain high levels of regionalised unemployment, concerns over working-class women’s capability to fully contribute to democratic debates was voiced publicly by numerous figures. 18 The Conservative-dominated governments of the 1930s favoured exercise as the means of achieving a fitter nation, rather than expensive healthcare programmes. The ultimate recognition of women’s cricket as a legitimate and worthwhile endeavour came via this government policy, and not just through greater public recognition. Firstly, this emerged through the Central Council for Recreative Physical Training which was founded in 1935 by leading physical educationalists to encourage sports participation in England. The Council pooled a number of youth organisations and sporting bodies together with the intention of creating sports festivals to better coordinate physical recreation in schools. 19 Following an invitation to send a delegate to the Council’s initial conference, the WCA was granted a permanent position on the central committee in November 1935. The WCA supported the organisation through various means, including the dissemination of literature and questionnaires, and after 1945 sent cricket coaches to their sports training camps. Although the Council was a voluntary organisation throughout the interwar period, it maintained close links with the government from the outset and in 1937 was awarded a two-year grant by the National Fitness Council. 20 The government’s increasing involvement in the health of the nation through sport, especially from the mid-1930s, was rather late compared with many other European nations. Although the Board of Education rejected outright any Nazi-style youth movement, they recognised the ‘growing concern’ over organised provision for physical education and ‘The idea a girl cannot play cricket has proved to be rubbish’