Cricket Witness No 4 - Women at the WIcket

87 Workplace and Working-Class Women’s Cricket and were regarded as more docile, less likely to strike, and more malleable to authority and direction. ‘New’ industries were commonly non-unionised, and this was particularly true of female workers. 39 Women’s cricket was, in fact, a product of an influential development in management theory which emphasised the welfare, educational and recreational needs of workers. Genuine religious and social agendas undoubtedly motivated many of these family-run companies to adopt worker-friendly conditions, but they were all fundamentally built on the foundation of profitability. The 19th- century Quaker origins of Cadbury’s, Rowntree’s and Huntley and Palmer’s directed the ethos of these businesses well into the next century. But to claim as one historian has that wealthy capitalists like George Cadbury were ‘suspicious of the profit motive’ is erroneous; cricket and other sports were justified by their ability to improve economic productivity and industrial relations. 40 Permanent on-site doctors, dentists and opticians undoubtedly aided workers’ health and happiness, but mutual benefit was derived from advancing business efficiency. Cadbury acknowledged that the better physical and mental condition of his workforce, the lower the sickness rates. Sport was believed to improve ‘alertness, concentration and self- control’ vital to effective assembly-line production. Benjamin Rowntree, who was entrusted with the welfare of the nation’s munitions workers during the First World War, echoed these sentiments when he argued for a reduction in working hours and more opportunities for physical recreation. 41 Meanwhile, a growing body of work on the scientific management of workers had been developing since the turn of the century, Dinner hour cricket at Cadbury’s, May 1908. All female employees at Bournville were invited to play a range of activities from as early as 1902, including cricket, netball, tennis, table tennis and hockey. (Cadbury archive, Mondelēz International)