Cricket Witness No 4 - Women at the WIcket

26 Out of the Darkness: The Game Emerges Very few working- and lower-middle class women played cricket before the First World War as it required time, money and opportunities only a minority could access. Nevertheless, there were some exceptions. The most conspicuous was ‘The Original English Lady Cricketers’, a commercial venture orchestrated by businessmen that toured England between 1890 and 1892. Consisting of two teams, a Red XI and a Blue XI, they performed exhibition matches for large crowds of paying spectators. The Original Lady Cricketers aimed to entertain, but also keenly stressed their womanhood and respectability. Young, single, and smartly dressed in matching ribbons and dresses, Victorian respectability preventing them from displayed skin, especially given the large crowds flocking to see them, and they even travelled with a matron to police their social engagements. The need to provide exciting, athletic play meant they favoured loose, unrestricting dresses, in sharp contrast to the likes of Royal Holloway or the White Heather Club. Unlike the strictly amateur sides playing at higher education colleges, the professionalism of the Original Lady Cricketers was clear from the start. The girls were trained by first-class cricketers, all their expenses were covered, and they were paid a generous 10 to 30 shillings per week. Press coverage and audiences varied. Supposedly 15,000 watched their opening match at the Police Athletic Ground, Liverpool, and 7,000 at Old Trafford, but numbers quickly fell and in some cities just a few hundred could be counted. 18 Although some journalists reported positively on their abilities and athleticism, the Original Lady Cricketers were generally judged to be a fanciful nomadic novelty. Commentators criticised their profit- motive, and disdainfully labelled them feminists. Others questioned their womanhood, believing the sport was evidence of ‘feminine muscularity getting just a shade too rampant.’ W.G. Grace wrote the venture off as a dismal failure, and when public interest waned, their managers absconded with the funds. 19 Come the interwar years, the Original Lady Cricketers would act as a warning from history. They unsuccessfully aimed to popularise the sport, Students play on the grounds of Madame Bergman-Österberg’s Physical Training Collage at Dartford Heath, c. 1897. (Bergman-Österberg Union)