Philobiblon: A cricket match, between Females

Monday, November 01, 2004

A cricket match, between Females

A complete report from the The Salisbury And Winchester Journal
and General Advertiser of Wilts, Hants, Dorset, and Somerset
of Monday, August 2, 1819, records that a team of married women took on a team of single women, the later, presumably younger and fitter, winning comfortably. "One of them played particularly well, and seldom missed a hit." (Unfortunately none of the players are named.)

And these were "professionals" - "we understand that a subscription amounting to £15 was divided amongst them, the winners of course having the greatest share".

As a cricketer - without qualifier, although I am usually the only "Female" on the pitch - nice to read about my predecessors.

Thanks the C-18 poster for this reference, which also has a selection of interesting other articles, including of course the inevitable dog story, from the same journal, but on Monday, August 26, 1782 ...

"Yesterday a young man leaped from the centre of Battersea-bridge, to swim up river against time for a wage of five guineas, but he was instantly followed by a Newfoundland dog, belonging to a casual passenger, who seized him by the arm, and without drawing blood, dragged him to shore, to the infinite merriment of a great number of spectators, who joined in paying a tribute of praise to this sagacious and generous animal."

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I nicked that immediately.

Thanks. The whole thing is great. And points as well to the huge amount of work being done by amateur genealogists. My own family name has been done over in outline to about 1605, since the whole mob comes from Gloucestershire. The origins are trackable to the early thirteen century.

It is really weird. I get excited and then stop dead in my tracks with the simplest of questions: what about me mum? Take the patriarchy out and we are faced with this awesome spreading spider of relationships that misses half the fun. Particularly since I suspect, as in my own family, that social mobility is expressed in marrying off the daughters as the nuisances or assets.

- dt, barista

11/05/2004 04:58:00 am  
Blogger Natalie Bennett said...

Glad you liked it - it is rather a fun site. Nice that you know all of your background. I know that on one grandparent side I come from Southport shopkeepers, and on another side I think there are supposed to be some Cornish tin miners, but that's about it.

11/06/2004 12:24:00 am  

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