Cricket Witness No 4 - Women at the WIcket

58 ‘Too much emphasis on personal comfort’ drinking in The Dog and Duck, while Liz Smith looks after the children. 3 Instructional literature on cricket also excluded women, such as popular coaching manuals like Francis Henley’s The Boys’ Book of Cricket , republished numerous times in the 1920s and 1930s, and Hugh de Selincourt’s Over! (1932). Both books were targeted at ‘chaps’ and ‘fellows’ at public and preparatory schools, and assumed girls did not (or should not) play the game seriously. 4 Selincourt’s The Cricket Match mirrored the widespread belief that leisure was a privilege earned through full-time paid employment and consequently housebound women did not qualify. Domestic labour was usually not considered a cause for spending time and money which would otherwise be spent on the family. Their toil held no monetary value, and the home was principally viewed as a site of leisure in the eyes of most men – a sanctuary from a long day at the office. Some commentators expressed a fear that playing games would alter women’s outlooks, and encourage single women to seek independence over motherhood. Married women were expected to forgo employment to attend to childrearing and household responsibilities, so unsurprisingly the vast majority of female cricket players were young, unmarried, and economically independent. Working-class women were often doubly burdened by employment, domestic responsibilities, and lack of money. Marriage bars at most companies curtailed women from continuing to play the game after wedlock. Those who did find the time for sport prioritised flexible, cheap and accessible recreation, boxes cricket left unticked. 5 Naturally, women voiced their frustration at this double standard. ‘Our husbands do not realise we ever need any leisure time’, one wife complained in the 1930s, ‘my life for many years consisted of being penned in a kitchen nine feet square… with the struggle to live and no leisure, I used to feel I was just a machine.’ While some wives could actively encourage cricket, seeing the sport as sponsoring good moral habits and a form of productive recreation that was less harmful than alternative pursuits, most women felt the need to put aside their own interests upon marriage in service to their family; sport was a temporary youthful pleasure, unbefitting the graceful service of adult life. 6 The image depicted in fiction and interviews was reflected in the make- up of the Women’s Cricket Association (WCA). Collecting information on all members is impossible, as many affiliated through their club or organisation, but small samples suggest very few married women played cricket in the interwar years. Between 1933 and 1938 the number of married Association women that joined as individual members was roughly one in ten, although this figure slowly increased as the period progressed. On the other hand, married women were far more likely to join as non-playing members, meaning they were typically involved in the administration and management of clubs, from committee members to scorers or umpires. Some continued to play, but it was rare. West-Midlander Betty Belton was