One Hundred Plus for Women’s Lacrosse in Australia
Thursday May 3, 2012
by Doug Fox
The first photo of womens lacrosse as shown in the Sun Pictorial
It has generally been understood that women's lacrosse was
introduced into Australia from England in 1936 when Nell Rawlins,
Director of the YWCA in Melbourne, called a meeting of people
interested in starting the game for women. The meeting took
place at the YWCA on the 18th May, 1936 and was
attended by members of the YWCA and girls and women connected with
the Williamstown Lacrosse Club.
An introductory coaching session was arranged for Saturday
6th June 1936 and women's lacrosse got underway in a
manner similar to the start made by men sixty years earlier -
initially two teams practicing each week in Albert Park. The
coaching was provided by Nell Rawlins, YWCA Director and Miss E.
Ellis, Physical Education Director of the Presbyterian Ladies
College. Both were former England representatives in
lacrosse.
The "Sun Pictorial" newspaper printed an action photograph of
the first official match in Victoria which was played between YWCA
and Williamstown at Lauriston Girls' School in Malvern on the
26th September 1936.
What has not previously come to light is that women's lacrosse
was played for some years by girls at the Melbourne Church of
England Girl's Grammar School (Merton Hall), dating from circa
1904. Miss Gwynneth Morris, a physical education teacher at
Merton Hall, introduced the sport as part of the school's
commitment to team sports. She had been exposed to lacrosse
when she studied physical education in London under Madame
Osterberg, the famed physical educationist and women's suffrage
advocate. On returning to Melbourne, Morris became the pioneer of
the Swedish "gymnastic system" in Victoria. The school
adopted the policy of organized games as an important part of the
development of a girl's character, promoting self-reliance,
self-control and teamwork. The Argus newspaper on
14th April 1928 reported on the 25th
anniversary of the school and noted the following from the
formative years of the school:
" In those days the girls
played lacrosse and cricket in front of Old Fairlie, the old wooden
bungalow with heavy wooden shutters which stood next to Merton
Hall, and had been acquired as an overflow house for
boarders"
In South Australia, in a manner similar to Merton Hall, the
Girton Girl's School in Adelaide experimented with lacrosse for its
pupils in the late 1920's and the Adelaide Advertiser ran a
headline on the 14th August 1931
"Lacrosse for Girls Next ?". Lacrosse by
this time was played in all the best English girls' schools with
some 134 schools and 19 colleges affiliated with the All-England
Women's Lacrosse Association. The South Australian Lacrosse
Association Executive discussed the question of introducing women's
lacrosse at a meeting in 1931 and agreed that this would be a good
thing, but it was not until the YWCA conducted a physical education
conference at Mount Lofty in 1936 that moves to establish the sport
for women bore fruit in South Australia.
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