When Lady Georgiana Grey died in 1900 at the age of 99, she had been living at Hampton Court Palace for almost 25 years.  How had she come to be living at the Palace at the ‘grace and favour’ of Queen Victoria?

Carte de Visite of Lady Georgiana Grey taken in Rome by Fratelli D’Alessandri circa 1865 - from the author's collection.

Lady Georgiana was born at Ham, Surrey, on 17 February 1801, the daughter of politician Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, and his wife Mary Elizabeth.  Georgiana was educated at home, learning literature, languages, music, embroidery and art.

By 1829, Georgiana’s three older sisters had married and her younger sister Mary was betrothed.  In April of that year, Countess Grey wrote to Georgiana expressing her love for her daughter: ‘What have I to make life desirable to me but you?  Your three dear sisters that are married can no longer belong to me, and though I do love my poor Mary very truly, yet I cannot conceal from myself (and I fear it is but too apparent to her) that my feeling for you is of a perfectly different nature - almost from your birth you have been the object and delight of my life’.

Georgiana was considered as a great beauty, talented in art, music, and politics.  After Queen Victoria succeeded to the throne in 1838, Georgiana enjoyed regular invitations to attend state balls, concerts, and dinners at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and Osborne House.  The Queen wrote in her journal that Georgiana was ‘clever and agreeable’, and the two women became friends.

General Charles Grey, Georgiana’s younger brother, was private secretary to Prince Albert between 1849 and 1860.  He went on to serve Queen Victoria as private secretary from 1861 until his death in 1870.  Georgiana’s elder sister, Lady Caroline Barrington, was appointed Woman of the Bedchamber in 1837 and Superintendent to the Queen’s daughters.  When Georgiana fell on hard times following the death of her mother in 1861, the Queen gave her an apartment at Kensington Palace, and then, in 1875, Apartment VI at Hampton Court Palace, where she lived with about four or five servants.

Charming, affable and generous, Georgiana travelled widely and had many friends.  In his History of Hampton Court Palace published in 1891, Ernest Law wrote: ‘It is no secret that Lady Georgiana is now within a few months of her ninety-first year; but, with every sense and faculty unimpaired, she is as strong, well, and healthy as most people at half her age.  We may add that her apartments are still one of the chief social centres of Hampton Court, her dinners and parties being the pleasantest in the Palace, while to her the young men and ladies in the Palace and its neighbourhood, have owed many delightful dances and theatrical entertainments in the Oak Room’.

Lady Georgiana Grey died at Hampton Court on 14 September 1900, having lived a long life filled with an endless round of functions, parties, dinners, fetes, and balls hosted by the Royal Family, foreign ambassadors and the cream of the British and European aristocracy.  She had been presented to three reigning monarchs, taken part in the coronation ceremony of King William IV and Queen Adelaide, and attended the coronation of Queen Victoria.  Georgiana was buried at Howick, the Grey family seat in Northumberland.

CC-BY Gary Hynard
Independent researcher

Creative Commons Attribution licence

Further reading:
British Newspaper Archive  e.g. obituary of Lady Georgiana Grey in Surrey Comet 15 September 1900.
Letters to Lady Georgiana Grey from her mother c. 1823-1839 – Borthwick Institute for Archives HALIFAX/A1/8/3.
Sarah E Parker, Grace & Favour - A handbook of who lived where in Hampton Court Palace 1750 to 1950 (Historic Royal Palaces, 2005).
Ernest Law, The History of Hampton Court Palace: Orange and Guelph times Vol. 3 (London, 1891).

 

Henrietta Anne (1644-1670), Duchess of Orléans and sister to King Charles II, was a key negotiator of an important diplomatic agreement between England and France. In 1670, Charles II and Louis XIV of France signed the Secret Treaty of Dover. Kept hidden from the public, it included Charles’s promise to publicly convert to Catholicism (which never happened) in exchange for vast sums of money, as well as a mutual alliance against the Dutch Republic.

Henrietta Anne, Duchess of Orleans, by Sir Peter Lely, around 1662, NPG 6028. © National Portrait Gallery, London. Terms of Use: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.

The British Library holds a rich volume of papers relating to the Treaty which demonstrates Henrietta’s significant role and is largely written in French.

Henrietta had a brief but extraordinary life. Born in Exeter in 1644, she was quickly whisked away to France because of the English Civil War and raised at the French court. At sixteen, she married Phillippe, Duke of Orléans and brother of Louis XIV. She was highly educated and intelligent, but was embarrassed by her written English and wrote almost exclusively in French.

Title page of a flattering portrait of Henrietta, by Jean Puget de la Serre (1661). Add MS 33752, f. 3.

In 1669, Charles II wrote a top-secret letter to Louis about the treaty, entrusting its delivery to Henrietta: ‘desireing that this matter might passe through your handes as the person in the world I have most confidence in.’ Charles even sent Henrietta a cipher, so that their correspondence would be totally confidential.

Henrietta was politically invaluable: both exceptionally close with Charles and trusted enough by Louis that he met her almost every day in early 1670 to discuss the negotiations. She provided the link between the two monarchs that allowed Louis to address Charles as ‘monsieur mon frère’ in his letters.

Henrietta’s long letter to Charles II, 1669. Add MS 65138, f. 47.

Unfortunately, many of Henrietta’s letters were destroyed after her death. One of the most striking surviving documents is her letter to Charles about this ‘grande affaire.’ Henrietta, who was Catholic, refers to Charles’s conversion as ‘le desin de la R’ (‘the design about R’), with R standing for ‘religion.’ She advises Charles at length on finances, the prospect of war in Holland, and Louis’s motives. She even suggests that Charles conceal their scheme from the Pope, since he might die before the planned conversion!

After several pages of confident political discussion, Henrietta signs off with a show of modesty, writing that she only dares to meddle in questions above her station because of her great love for her brother.

A visit to Charles by Henrietta was the cover story for the final stage of the treaty’s formation, and she was personally charged with carrying the French copy back to Louis.

Final protocol of the Treaty, featuring the seals and signatures of Charles II’s principal advisors. Add MS 65138, f. 91v.

Tragically, Henrietta died just months later at the age of 26. One first-hand account states that she drank a glass of chicory water, a medicinal drink, before collapsing in agony (Stowe MS 191, f. 22). Another account ungenerously insists on her depraved, sinful life, claiming she was poisoned and spent her final moments repenting (Kings MS 140, f. 107).

What we can be sure of is her affection for Charles. She addresses her letter to him uncharacteristically in English: ‘For the King.’

‘For the King’: a rare example of Henrietta writing in English in her letter to Charles. Add MS 65138, f. 51v.

Isabel Maloney
PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge and PhD placement student in Modern Archives and Manuscripts

Further reading:

Keith Feiling, ‘Henrietta Stuart, Duchess of Orleans, and the Origins of the Treaty of Dover’, The English Historical Review, Vol. 47, No. 188 (Oct., 1932), pp. 642-645.

Cyril Hughes Hartmann, Charles II and Madame (London, 1934).

What do the names Abdullah Quilliam, Henri Marcel Léon and Haroon Mustapha Leon have in common?  The answer is that they are all aliases of William Henry Quilliam, 19th century solicitor and convert to Islam.

William Henry Quilliam was born in Liverpool on 10 April 1856.  He was of Manx descent and raised by Wesleyan Methodists.  After training and working as a solicitor, he moved to the Middle East in 1887, where he converted to Islam and changed his name to Abdullah Quilliam.  He returned to England and opened Britain’s first Muslim institute and mosque at 8-10 Brougham Terrace, Liverpool, in 1889.  The site was a place of worship and education, with its own science laboratory and museum.

Quilliam was given the title of sheikh-ul-Islam (leader of the Muslims) of Britain by the Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid II.  He also found time to edit a series of Islamic periodicals, publishing frequently under the alias H. [Haroon] Mustapha Leon.  A controversial figure in Victorian England, he received backlash for publicly renouncing Christianity, while Brougham Terrace became a target for vandals.  After leaving the UK for a short period he lived on the Isle of Man in the 1910s, changing his name for a third time to Henri Marcel Léon.

William Henry Quilliam, known as Sheikh Abdullah Quilliam. Public Domain

Quilliam is the subject of British Library manuscripts collection Add MS 89684, which has just been catalogued and is now available for research.  The papers in this collection were compiled by Patricia ‘Pat’ Gordon, granddaughter of Quilliam, while conducting research into her grandfather’s life history.  The collection comprises correspondence, newspaper and magazine cuttings, photographs and even a ceremonial silver trowel.  The trowel was presented by the United Methodist Free Churches to Quilliam’s mother, Harriet, on the laying of a memorial stone of the School Chapel, Durning Road, Liverpool, on 20 August 1877.

A ceremonial silver trowel presented to Mrs Quilliam Add MS 89684/4/6

During the 1990s, Pat was in regular correspondence with the Abdullah Quilliam Society of Liverpool.  The Society was founded to restore the location of Quilliam’s mosque at Brougham Terrace.  Pat was invited by the Society to unveil a plaque outside the prayer hall on 10 October 1997, in a ceremony which was organised to commemorate Quilliam’s achievements.  Photographs of this event can be found at Add MS 89684/3/2.

Quilliam died in London on 23 April 1932.  He was buried in an unmarked grave in the Muslim section of Brookwood Cemetery, Woking, not far from the grave of the Islamic scholar and barrister Abdullah Yusuf Ali (1872-1953).  It is thanks to the work of Pat Gordon and the Abdullah Quilliam Society that William Henry Quilliam’s mosque and unique history have survived.

George Brierley
Manuscripts Cataloguer

Further reading:
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography – Quilliam, William Henry
Add MS 89684 – Papers relating to Abdullah Quilliam

 

Nunhead is one of London’s ‘Magnificent Seven’ cemeteries.  It may not have the famous residents of Highgate or Kensal Green, but in among the graves and tombs of local worthies lies that of a sailor who took part in one of the most daring naval raids of World War One.

Reginald Bult’s grave, Nunhead cemetery, © Sarndra Lees, New Zealand, 2015.

Reginald Bult was born in Bermondsey in 1896 and grew up in Peckham, the seventh of nine children of Henry, a railway weighbridge clerk, and Jane.  He worked as a Post Office telegraph messenger and a lift attendant before joining the Royal Navy on his eighteenth birthday, just two months before the start of hostilities.  Within a year he had advanced to Able Seaman and in April 1918 he took part in Operation ZO.  The brainchild of Vice Admiral (later Admiral of the Fleet) Roger Keyes, the plan was to sink obsolete cruisers simultaneously in the harbours at Zeebrugge and Ostend thus preventing German U-boats entering the North Sea from their pens at Bruges.

The operation began on the eve of St George’s Day with Keyes’s signal ‘St George for England’ (to which Capt. Carpenter, commanding HMS Vindictive, replied, ‘May we give the dragon’s tail a damn good twist’).  Reginald was onboard HMS Iris II (a requisitioned Mersey ferry) whose task was to create a diversion by landing Royal Marines and sailors on the mole at Zeebrugge to destroy German guns and cause as much damage as possible.  Iris came under intense fire and most of the raiding party was killed before they even got off the ship.

Reginald Bult’s name in the register of participants in Operation ZO, Add MS 82500 C.

The operation was only a partial success.  Neither blockship at Ostend obstructed the harbour , and while all three were sunk at Zeebrugge, they were not in the right positions.  The harbour was only out of action for a couple of days.  The Germans simply dredged new channels, allowing naval movements at high tide.

The cost was huge.  Of the 1780 men who took part something like 227 died and 400 were wounded.  Exact figures are difficult to determine as there is no consistency of approach in whether to include the missing among the dead and whether to combine casualties from both sites.  Whichever source one uses, the ratio of casualties to participants was around 1:3. 

Sadly, Reginald is numbered among the dead, dying of his wounds in Dover Military Hospital, his Royal Navy service record marked, poignantly, ‘DD’ – discharged dead.  He was mentioned in dispatches and he was included in the ballot for a Victoria Cross to be awarded to the non-officer ranks in action at the mole – the warrant for the VC allows recipients to be chosen in this way where a body of men is deemed equally brave.

Reginald Bult’s service record, The National Archives ADM 188/691/22432, © Crown copyright, 1908, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Reginald Bult’s mention in dispatches, London Gazette, 19 July 1918, Add MS 82503, © Crown copyright, 1918, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Reginald was not chosen. Instead it was fellow Bermondsian Albert McKenzie who was selected, one of eight VCs awarded for the operation.  McKenzie, only nineteen at the time of Operation ZO, was severely wounded in the action.  He recovered but did not live to see peace, succumbing to the 1918 flu pandemic just eight days before the armistice.  He is commemorated with a statue on Tower Bridge Road, a stone’s throw from where he was born, and is buried just a mile from Reginald, in Camberwell Old Cemetery.

Michael St John-Mcalister
Manuscripts Catalogue and Process Manager

Further reading
The Keyes Papers, Add MS 82499-82507
E. C. Coleman, No Pyrrhic Victories: The 1918 Raids on Zeebrugge and Ostend, A Radical Reappraisal (Stroud, 2014)
Christopher Sandford, Zeebrugge: The Greatest Raid of All (Oxford, 2018)
Philip Warner, The Zeebrugge Raid (Barnsley, 2008)

 

In my recent post about Charles Daniels, an ex-soldier sent adrift upon the world, I asked if anyone could help me find what happened to his wife Catherine after the death of her second husband Sergeant John Shillcock in 1855.  One of our readers has pointed me in the direction of the Agra Fort Directory of 1857 where a widow ‘Mrs C Shilcock’ is listed.

Agra Fort Directory 1857 - India Office Private Papers Mss Eur D385 

The directory was based on a census taken by Assistant Surgeon James Pattison Walker of 5,845 people sleeping in the Fort on 27 July 1857 .  They were seeking refuge from the Indian Uprising.  Nearly 2,000 Europeans are named - soldiers, civil servants, surgeons, teachers, priests, nuns, railway employees, merchants, craftsmen, bankers, indigo planters, and wives, widows, and children.  There were also 1542 ‘East Indians’, 858 ‘Native Christians’, 1157 ‘Hindoos’, and 229 ‘Mahomedans’, but no names are recorded for these groups.

Numbers of people sleeping in Agra Fort 26-27 July 1857

Mrs Shillcock was living in Block F of the Fort.  A fellow resident was twenty-year-old Rosa Mary Coopland. Her husband, chaplain George William Coopland, had been killed at Gwalior in June 1857.  Their son George Bertram Philpott was born in Agra Fort on 8 August.

Agra Fort Directory showing entry for Mrs C Shilcock

In 1859 Rosa Mary Coopland published a memoir of her escape from Gwalior and life in Agra Fort,.  She described life in the Fort – the noise and confusion of people settling into their quarters; the staff of sweepers paid by the authorities to keep the interior clean; the butchers, bakers and laundrymen carrying on their trades within the walls; the laying-out of gardens; the making of coffins.

Agra Fort - garrison orders 1 July 1857 - India Office Private Papers Mss Eur D385 

The Agra civil servants had comparatively comfortable quarters in the gardens.  A large marble hall there was used as a business office and as a church on Sundays.  The military officers and their families lived in tents, as did the Roman Catholic Archbishop and his clergy.  The highest military ranks occupied a row of small houses, and their soldiers lived in barracks.  Nuns created a school and a chapel in the place where the gun carriages had stood.  Shopkeepers and merchants made small thatched huts, and ‘every available place was crammed’, with people ‘almost as closely packed as bees in a hive’.

The memoir also told the story of a woman killed at Gwalior.  Mrs Coopland couldn’t remember the woman's name, but she was the widow of a conductor in the commissariat who had risen from the ranks and saved a great deal of money.  He had died shortly before the Uprising and his widow had buried his boxes of treasure for safety.  Apparently some sepoys demanded the treasure and shot the woman when she refused to show them the hiding place.

The dead woman was Catherine Shillcock’s elder sister Maria.  She had married Andrew Burrows, a private in HM 87th Foot, on 22 October 1821 at Fort William. They had at least seven children, with three dying as infants.

By 1857 Andrew was Deputy Commissary of Ordnance attached to the Gwalior Magazine.  He died on 14 May 1857.  His will made in 1843 left everything to Maria, but did not name an executor. As Maria was dead, the estate was settled by the Administrator General in Bengal.

On 31 July 1858 a funeral service was read at Gwalior over the remains of those who died there in June 1857, including those of George William Coopland and Maria Burrows.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
Mss Eur D385 Agra Fort Directory 1857 and Garrison Orders I July 1857 in Charles Lamont Robertson Glasfurd papers.
R M Coopland, A lady’s escape from Gwalior and life in the Fort of Agra during the mutinies of 1857 (London 1859).
IOR/N/1/8 f.186 Baptism of Maria Griffiths 10 August 1809.
IOR/N/1/11 f.566 Marriage of Maria Griffiths to Andrew Burrows 22 October 1821.
IOR/N/1/94 p.140 Funeral service read at Gwalior on 31 July 1858 over remains, including those of George William Coopland, died 15 June 1857, and Maria Burrows, who died 14 June 1857.
Will and estate papers of Andrew Burrows IOR/L/AG/34/29/100 pp.210-214 & 534-535; IOR/L/AG/34/27/165 p.266; IOR/L/AG/34/27/169 p.285.

 

In a previous post, I promised to share any further discoveries about the Dessa family, whose son George Edward Dessa (d. 1913) had attempted to assassinate Viceroy Lord Lytton whilst struggling with mental health problems.

George’s mother, Ann Elizabeth Dessa (otherwise De Sa) had undergone her own mental health struggles, having been admitted to the Bhowanipore (Bhawanipur) Lunatic Asylum in 1849.  A snapshot of Bhowanipore in 1856-57 certainly challenges perceived notions of Victorian lunatic asylums.  Sited on a two-acre plot south of Fort William, its well laid out gardens were said to ‘impart to the Asylum a pleasing feature of rural quiet’.  The boundary walls were hidden by climbing plants. Emphasis was on the circulation of fresh air, hygiene, liberal quantities of well-cooked quality food, and kindness, the latter being ‘the real substitute for mechanical restraint’.  Ann Elizabeth was released back into the care of her family in 1874, having been institutionalised for a quarter of a century.  She died in Calcutta on 12 December 1888.

We can find a little more about Ann Elizabeth's background in the records.  She was born on 15 October 1818 at Mirzapur, daughter of Jacob Rogers and his wife Elizabeth, and was baptised there on 10 August 1821.  According to the East India Register, she married George Henry Dessa, a writer, at Chuprah on 11 October 1832, days before her fourteenth birthday.  Entries in the East India Register refer to the birth of two sons, on 23 May 1837 and 22 October 1843.  These are possibly her sons William David and George Edward, although we know she and her husband had at least three boys, the youngest of whom died aged 12.  The family moved to Calcutta, and appear to have suffered from financial difficulties despite George Henry working in various government roles such as in the Civil Auditor’s Office, and later on the East Indian Railway.  There are five entries in the London Gazette between 1842 and 1862 referring to petitions filed in the Court of Relief of Insolvent Debtors naming George Henry Dessa.

Portrait of Jacob Rogers by Jiwan Ram, Bodleian Library LP 846. Photo: © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. Terms of use: CC-BY-NC 4.0. 

It should have been so different for Ann Elizabeth. Her father Lieutenant Jacob Rogers had been in the service of Maharaja Daulat Rao Scindia, the ruler of Gwalior state, and was an East India Company pensioner.  A portrait of him by the Indian artist Jiwan Ram entitled ‘Quartermaster Rogers’ survives; it once formed part of the collection of the Begum Samru (Joanna Nobilis Sombre) at Sardhana palace.  Bought by T. R. Wyer, a Collector in Meerut, in 1894, it was gifted to the Indian Institute, 1913 and now forms part of the Bodleian Library collections. 

 Copy of the will of Jacob Rogers dated 12 March 1819 IOR/L/AG/34/29/36, pp.97-100

Ann’s early life was comfortable, living in a bungalow in Mirzapore surrounded with servants and possessions, all of which Jacob left to his wife Elizabeth in his will written of 1819. Jacob’s death on 10 January 1824, age 41, changed everything; the worth of Rogers’ estate was almost identical to the outstanding claims against it, effectively leaving few assets for his wife and daughter. All his belongings – books, furniture, pictures, carpets, guns, plate, jewellery, clothing, horses, buggy – were sold at public auction just weeks after his death.

Estate  papers of Jacob Rogers showing his servants' wages IOR/L/AG/34/27/81 p.659

Lesley Shapland
Cataloguer, India Office Records

Further Reading:
Report by Theodore Cantor, Superintendent of the Asylums… at Bhowanipore and Dullunda for 1856-57 can be found online.  
Sir Evan Cotton ‘The Sardhana Pictures in Government House, Allahabad’, Bengal Past and Present vol LII, part I (1936).

British Library India Office Records available via Findmypast -
IOR/N/1/64, f.43 Baptism of Ann Elizabeth Rogers (later Dessa), 10 Aug 1821 at Mirzapore.
IOR/L/AG/34/29/36, pp.97-100 Copy of the will of Jacob Rogers dated 12 Mar 1819, proved 25 Feb 1824.
IOR/L/AG/34/27/81, pp. 641-661 Inventory of the estate of Jacob Rogers, including a catalogue of the sale of his goods at auction.
IOR/L/AG/34/27/80, pp.618-619 and IOR/L/AG/34/27/80, pp. 702-704 Accounts relating to the estate of Jacob Rogers.

 

24 July 2023 marks the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Peace with Turkey commonly referred to as the Treaty of Lausanne which ended the war between the Allies and Turkey [now known officially as Türkiye/the Republic of Türkiye]. It was the final Treaty of the First World War.

Front cover of the Treaty of Lausanne 1923 Mss Eur F112/280/2

One of the issues on the table at the Lausanne conference was the question of Mosul – whether the city and its province should become part of the new Republic of Turkey or the British mandate of Iraq.

‘The Question of Mosul’ Mss Eur F112/294, f 237

Mosul had been occupied by the British at the end of the war. The head of the British delegation was the Foreign Secretary and former Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon.  He was adamant about the importance of retaining Mosul; the final decision to change the British Navy’s fuel from coal to oil was taken during the war.

The importance of controlling the development of the Mosul oil field Mss Eur F 112/294, f 10

Curzon resisted Turkish attempts to settle the matter at the Lausanne conference.  He wrote from the Hotel Beau Rivage to General Mustafa İsmet İnönü Pasha, the leader of the Turkish delegation, that Mosul ‘is under a Mandate administered by Great Britain, which I have had the honour to inform you repeatedly that I am not in a position to surrender’.

Letter from Curzon at Hotel Beau Rivage to General Mustafa İsmet İnönü Pasha, the leader of the Turkish delegation, Mss Eur F112/295, f 13

Instead, the question of Mosul was pushed onto to the League of Nations whose committee ruled that Mosul should be part of the new British-controlled mandate of Iraq.  In 1926, the ‘Brussels Line’ was drawn as the boundary of Iraq, and Iraq agreed to pay Turkey 10 per cent royalties on Mosul’s oil resources for 25 years.

Map of the Mosul area IOR/L/PS/20/C204, f 34 ‘Map No. 3’

Curzon’s instinct turned out to be prescient as oil in vast quantities was discovered in Kirkuk in 1927.

The Hotel Beau Rivage still welcomes international guests to the shores of Lake Geneva today.

Francis Owtram
Gulf History Specialist, British Library/Qatar Foundation Partnership

Further reading:
Kristian Coates-Ulrichsen, The Middle East in the First World War (Hurst, 2014)
Jonathan Conlin and Ozan Ozavci (eds) They All Made Peace – What is Peace? The 1923 Lausanne Treaty and the New Imperial Order, (Ginko, 2023)
The Lausanne Project – the New Middle East, 1922-23
Francis Owtram, ‘Oil, the Kurds and the Drive for Independence: An Ace in the Hole or a Joker in the Pack’, in A. Danilovich (ed) Iraqi Kurdistan in Middle East Politics (Routledge, 2016)

 

As the Women’s World Cup opens in Australia, here are two newspaper items about women’s football from the 1880s which show the kinds of prejudice that the sport has had to overcome.

In June 1881, the Huddersfield Daily Chronicle reported that an evening match had taken place at the ground of Cheetham Football Club between two teams of eleven women from England and Scotland.  The players, dressed in a costume 'neither graceful nor very becoming', were driven to the ground in a waggonette, and were followed by a crowd composed  mainly of youths eager for 'boisterous amusement'.  Very few people paid for admission but many gathered outside and tried to see what was going on.  Police constables were there to maintain order whilst 'the so-called match' was being played, but after about an hour they lost control and the ground was overtaken by a mob.  The women, fearing that there would be a repetition of the rough treatment they had met with in other parts of the country, ran back to the waggonette.  They were immediately driven away amidst jeers and disorder.

'The lady footballers at play’ at the north versus south match at Crouch End - Daily Graphic 25 March 1895

In April 1887 a letter was sent to the editor of the Wakefield and West Riding Herald about 'the exhibition in the Thornes Football Club field'.  The correspondent stated: 'The sight of women so far unsexing themselves as publicly to wear the dress of men, and play a game we are accustomed to regard as a purely masculine sport, is not easily reconcilable with our ideas of the fitness of things'.  The 'athletic and inspiriting game of football' played by men was a pleasurable amusement for spectators of both sexes.  'Delicate susceptibilities' were seldom wounded by unseemly remarks made by bystanders when watching young men play football.  But at the women's match the 'few respectable persons whom the novelty of the thing induced to see and judge for themselves the propriety or impropriety of the proceedings, were speedily driven from the ground by the disgusting remarks they could not avoid hearing, as well as by their individual reprehension of the whole affair'.

The correspondent believed that 'this unpleasant exhibit' was one of the last ways in which 'womanly women' would want to earn money.  His disgust was mingled with pity 'as the unavoidable feeling arises that the barriers of modesty and self-respect must have been largely broken down before such a way of life could have been decided upon’.  The letter ends with the call to oppose anything 'that has a tendency to lessen or destroy the innate delicacy of the female character'.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
British Newspaper Archive (also available via Findmypast)  - Huddersfield Daily Chronicle 23 June 1881; Wakefield and West Riding Herald 23 April 1887.