The theme of International Women’s Day 2024 is Invest in Women, Accelerate Progress.
Watching Molly Caudery win gold for Great Britain in the pole vault final while Josh Kerr successfully defended his 3000m his title on the track at the recent World Indoor Championships in Glasgow got me thinking; while other sports are still trying to increase the visibility of their women’s programmes, with athletics it is already there. Naturally, men’s and woman’s events are integrated on the programme, of course they are both as important to the overall spectacle, the overall sport of athletics. But was it always like this? Or have I just been lucky enough to grow up in an era where this seems normal?
Images: Pat Isaacs
Modern athletics as we might call it, with internationally accepted rules, records and competitions, grew up in the latter half of the nineteenth century. There were competitions before this; running, jumping and throwing are so fundamental to human movement that events based on these actions are as old as time, but it was Amateur Athletic Association (AAA) established in 1880 which gave the world a set of standard rules for men’s athletics. Great. But what about the women?
There was certainly women’s athletics in this era, mostly in colleges and schools, or at local level, but there was no overarching governing body for women’s athletics, no codified rules for competition, no national or international championships, and a fairly strong resistance from some quarters to the idea that women should or even could take part in athletic pursuits.
Private Collection.
Things began to change in the 1920s. A team of women, mostly from the Regent Street Polytechnic, represented England at the Jeux Olympiques Feminins (The Women’s Olympiad) in 1922 in Monte Carlo. This was the second of three Women’s Olympiads organised by French women’s sports pioneer Alice Milliat in reaction to women’s athletics being barred from the Olympic Games. Back in the UK, realising that the AAA would not extend its governance of athletics to include women, female athletes began to organise for themselves. The Women’s AAA was founded to provide standardised, high-quality competitions for female athletes and a process for picking teams to compete at international championships.
In the north of England, two pioneers of this women’s athletics movement were sisters Hilda and Phyllis Wright. Hilda was an athlete and Phyllis, it would turn out, was a brilliant organiser. In 1929 Hilda convened a meeting in which the Northern Counties Women’s Amateur Athletic Association (NCWAAA) was formed.
Phyllis became the first Honorary Secretary, with Hilda acting as president. The NCWAAA arranged track and field meetings for female athletes in the north of England as well as cross country meetings in conjunction with the Women’s Cross Country and Race-Walking Association.
Image: Private Collection, courtesy of Chadwick family
Hilda was an early Northern Counties hurdles champion, despite measuring only 5 foot tall. She was a good sprinter, making the relay team. She played hockey for Lancashire and was Secretary of Manchester Athletics Club Ladies Section in its early days. Phyllis’ involvement in the administration of women’s athletics saw her become NCWAAA president in the early 1930s, a post she held for more than 20 years.
Image: Private Collection, courtesy of Chadwick family.
The Phyllis Wright Trophy, named in her honour, for best performance at NCWAAA championships was a coveted piece of silverware and she was also Honorary Secretary of Yorkshire Women’s Track Association for several years. Phyllis was awarded an MBE in recognition of her services to women’s athletics in 1971.
Both sisters were instrumental in giving female athletes in the north of England a recognised structure which to compete and develop their athletic abilities through the NCWAAA. Along with their equivalent associations in the midlands and south, the Women’s AAA pushed forward the standard and opportunities for women’s athletics throughout the twentieth century to such a point that, when we switch the TV on to watch the Paris Olympics this summer, it’ll be so normal to see women’s and men’s athletics on the same programme that most of us won’t even give it another thought. Maybe though, we just ought to spare a moment to recognise those women who got up and got things done, accelerating our sport’s progress to this point, while other sports are still trying work out how to get there.
To find out more about early women’s athletics check out The Athletics Museum’s WAAA at 100 exhibition