Description:The Edgbaston Archery Association (later the Edgbaston Archery and Lawn Tennis Association) was formed in 1860. Membership was carefully controlled: ‘applicants for admission to be proposed by a Member, and Ballotted for’.<small><sup>1</sup></small>
The minutes of the Annual General Meeting in 1872 offer us a snapshot of attitudes towards women at the time, and one woman’s attempt to swim against the tide. The printed version of the minutes which was circulated following the meeting records the following motion:
‘Proposed by Miss Hill (in the absence of Miss Davies) that in rule III the word "gentlemen" be erased and the words "members of the Society" substituted’.
The original rule III states that the Committee shall consist of the officers ‘together with ten gentlemen’. Miss Davies’ proposed change would therefore theoretically open membership of the committee to female members.
An amendment was proposed by Mr. Tanner, as follows:
‘That, as there are already on the Committee several married men who can (being under the direction and influence of their wives) be well informed as to the wants and requirements of the Lady Members of the Society, the wording of the Rule remain as at present’.
A further amendment was then proposed by Mr Harding, that it should be ‘left to the ladies present to decide’ on the motion. The minutes then record that ‘Miss Davies’s motion was therefore put to the ladies present, who, with hardly an exception, negatived it. The motion was therefore lost’.
Alongside the printed version of these minutes, the archives preserve the handwritten notes which must have been written straight after the meeting. They differ in small but significant ways. In these notes, Harding’s amendment is recorded as follows:
‘That the meeting are well content to leave it to the ladies present to decide whether their sex be represented on the committee, and Miss Davies’ motion carried’.
This makes much more explicit the implication of the original motion. The notes then go on:
‘This amendment having been carried almost unanimously it was thereupon put to the ladies to decide upon Miss Davies’s motion which was lost by a large majority’.
This shows that the amendment was not unanimously carried – a fact which is omitted in the later version. More important, it records that the motion was lost by ‘a large majority’, in other words there were women present who agreed with the original motion.
These discrepancies may seem tiny, and they do not change the overall result of the discussion. However, they show that, by the time the minutes were circulated, they had been subtly toned down to minimise any suggestion of support for Miss Davies’ motion.
Miss Davies was clearly out of sympathy with the society:
‘Miss Davies offered a prize which was played for according to the croquet regulations and won by Mr. H. L. Holbecke, but Miss Davies refused to provide the prize’.
These minutes demonstrate the ambiguous situation faced by women at this time. Membership of the society included many women, and they were active participants in both archery and croquet, and later lawn tennis, but they were denied any role in the running of the society. Attempts by women to challenge the status quo were often regarded with suspicion by women as well as by men. When Harding left it to the ladies present to decide upon Miss Davies’ motion he must have confidently expected that most of them would oppose it.
<font color="#666633"><small><sup>1</sup> Edgbaston Archery and Lawn Tennis Society Minutes, February 1860</small></font>